Inconstant Moon - Default Font Edition (46 page)

Jose turns back toward Barbie's car and Adam swings his computer bag at him. It hits Jose in the back, making him stagger into the car door. Only grabbing onto the handle keeps him from falling down but it makes the door slam shut again. Jose doesn't care, he is just too angry at this stupid nerd.

Turning back to Adam he says. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“First you broke my cellphone and now you are attempting to steal Barbie's car.”

“Piss off, I'm just borrowing her car. Besides, why should you care, she was only ever nice to you so you'd fix her computer for free. She was just using you, you loser. So just bug the hell off.”

“Why should I believe you? Why would I believe anything a car thief says, Mister Loser?”

Jose just flips him the bird and reaches for the door handle again.

Adam steps in even closer, crowding him. “No. This is not your car.”

Jose tries to elbow Adam, but somehow finds himself sitting in the dirt. His bloody balance must be off after the ruckus with Barbie. He scrambles to his feet and takes a swing at the guy and misses again.

This is getting annoying. especially since he can hear sirens. Goddamn, are they coming for him already? He can't even get off the bloody campus because of this crazy geek. He looks over at the scrawny little guy in a tie. A fuckin'tie for god's sake. “What is your problem?”

“You can't just go around breaking people's phones and pushing them around. I am just so sick of bullies.”

Jose launches himself at Adam who easily sidesteps. Jose ends up skidding and sliding onto his knees on the asphalt.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, Batman?”

“No, just a geek who thought martial arts training might help me deal with neanderthals like you. Have you had enough?”

Jose starts picking himself up. This is so ridiculous. This 98 pound weakling — wearing a tie for gods sake — is stopping him from getting away.

That's it, no more mister nice guy.

With a mighty roar Jose lunges at Adam with all the force he can muster. This time Adam does not step away but rather steps in, grasping Jose's wrist and somehow transforming the attack into a kind of ballet, altering the direction of movement and somehow sending Jose face first into the side door of the hummer parked in the adjacent parking spot.

Blinding pain.

God that hurt. For a second it's like a hot needle in his nose, then Jose realizes his nose is broken, as blood spurts out his left nostril and the swelling starts. Shit. It fucking hurts.

Jose slides to the ground. His whole face is throbbing. This is not good. He rolls over and lays on his back, looking up at the clouds. He can taste blood in the back of his throat. His head is ringing. He's so tired. It's just not his day.

Hearing the sirens getting closer he thinks, WTF.

Reaching inside his jacket he pulls out a joint and puts it in his mouth. Fumbling in his other pocket for the lighter he fires it up, and the first drag is heaven.

As the sweet smoke slides in, he sucks it deep into his lungs, where he holds it a moment to let the calm envelop him. Letting it out in a rush, he watches stray wisps of smoke float away, up into the sky.

Laurel L. Russwurm
first learned how
not
to write a novel at the age of thirteen.
A few years later Laurel embarked on her first adventure in publishing with the Star Trek & science fiction fanzine
CANEKTION
.

Studying Media Arts at
Sheridan College
led Laurel into a television career, with credits spanning projects as diverse as the Emmy winning
'Romeo and Juliet on Ice'
and John Zaritsky's
'Rapists: Can They Be Stopped'

Laurel segued into writing episodic television including
Night Heat
,
Tintin
,
Babar
, and
The NeverEnding Story
, with adventures in story editing on
Hot Shots
and
T. and T.

While taking time out for a parenting hiatus, Laurel dabbled in digital image manipulation, web design, blogging, and the Internet, but the siren song of novelling was far too strong to resist.

Inconstant Moon
is Laurel's debut novel.

Currently Laurel is editing her second novel, "
The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe
" and laying the groundwork for her third.

Inconstant Moon
is
serialized online
and has its own
Facebook page

Laurel's Personal Blog

Visual Laurel on Tumblr

Identi.ca

Twitter

NaNoWriMo

LibraryThing

goodreads

Flickr

MySpace

Or drop Laurel a line at
[email protected]

Writing a novel isn't as solitary a pursuit as I once thought. I have been fortunate to benefit from the advice, assistance and inspiration of many who helped make my debut novel become a reality. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks for invaluable contributions:

NaNoWriMo
 

provided focus, a deadline, and the impetus to get back in the water.  

The
Public Domain
is a powerful cultural resource. Its existence allows creators to learn and share culture.  Because Shakespeare's work is all well within the public domain, I was able to incorporate the balcony scene in 
Romeo and Juliet
as the backdrop for Chapter 25.  
My excerpts from William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
were found online at
the MIT Shakespeare Project
.
You can get the classic novel
Don Quixote
as a free ebook thanks to the fabulous
Project Gutenberg
, the Free Digital Library

Cory Doctorow
,
Nina Paley
and
Allison Crowe
for
questioning copyright
and
leading by example

The
Identi.ca
free software community shared tech advice:
Charles H. Schulz
,
Roman Gelbort
,
Viktor Lindberg
,
Kevin Smith
,
Luke Slater
,
Matěj Cepl
,
François Revol
,
Brewster Malevich
,
Paul Philippov
,
Mike Linksvayer,
Jake Kromer
,
Jan Wildeboer
,
Fanen Ahua
, @
rpcutts
,
Fabian Rodriguez
,
David Butt
,
MarjoleinKatsma
,
Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér
,
@
agentsmith
, @
marcelwink,
and @
openuniverse

The
Mobileread Forums
 are an invaluable resource
for eBook formatting.  For specifics, many thanks go to:
jackie_w
,  
JSWolf
,  
Jellby
,  
Toxaris
,  
Adjust
,  
Pablo
,  
HarryT
,  
pholy
,  and 
dwig
.

Many thanks are also due to:

Graham Linehan
 

for resolving a last minute "Irish" question, and

 
Nicolle DeCoppel
 

for wonderfully depressing movie suggestions

Debbi Mack
 

for her lovely blurb, 

Eric Swett
 

for the first review, and 

Charles Roth

for biblification in the
Encyclomundi blog
.

But most of all, my wonderful crew of
Beta Readers
provided invaluable feedback in a ridiculously short span of time:
Larry Russwurm
,
Bob Jonkman
,
Nienke Hinton
,
Wayne Borean
,
Lawrence Yeh
,
Sameena Topan
,
Nicole Russwurm
,
Enkanowen
and
@openuniverse

I thank you all for your generosity; I could not have done it without you. But of course, any and all errors are entirely my own.  

— Laurel L. Russwurm, March 5th, 2012

Inconstant Moon
was written with
OpenOffice Writer
running on
Ubuntu
, a distribution of the
GNU/Linux
operating system.

The final proof was done in
LibreOffice Writer
running on
Trisquel
, another distribution of GNU/Linux.

This ebook version was crafted in
Wordpress
,
gedit
, and
Libre Office
, ultimately using the
Sigil
WYSIWYG ebook editor in Trisquel.

This is the
Default Font Digital Edition
of
Inconstant Moon
.

The more I learn about proprietary formats, the more strongly I have come to believe in the importance of "free." This is why I wanted 
Inconstant Moon
to be available for reading with free fonts, just as it is in print.

Yet my forays into the excellent
Mobilread forums
quickly convinced me many people prefer to read eBooks using the fonts they have chosen as the default fonts on their eReaders.  The last thing I would want to do is to force my font choice on my readers.  

But presently eBook standards are all over the map [no doubt due to proprietary jockeying for supremacy].  This means that some devices allow user overrides while others do not.   

So the problem arises: if I publish
Inconstant Moon
with embedded free fonts, I might in fact infringe on the reader's freedom to choose their own fonts.  I most certainly don't want my free fonts to serve as a kind of DRM, but that would be the effect on an eReader reader that doesn't allow user over-ride.  The very act of making free fonts available could end by sacrificing freedom. Not at all the desired outcome.

I struggled with the dilemma for a while, but I couldn't get past the thought that we should
all
be free to choose.   I wanted to have my cake, and eat it too.  But I'm luckier than
Marie Antoinette
, because my dilemma is digital. I *can* have both.  

The solution was so breathtakingly simple it made my head spin. Why not offer two eBook editions? The effort required to create alternate editions of
Inconstant Moon
would be a very small price to pay for freedom.  
Inconstant Moon
 will be available in two digital editions, the
Free Font Edition
, an  ePub version I hope to make available at 
Libreleft Books
 and this, 

The
Default Font Edition
 of
Inconstant Moon
does not have any embedded fonts at all.  It defines only 
serif
 and 
san serif
 text, leaving all font selections entitely up to the reader.  In this way the default fonts you've set on your eReader will display according to your preferences.  The only formatting I've applied to the type have been a differentiation between serif and san-serif, and some use of bold or italic text for emphasis.   If you are interested in trying out the Free Font edition, contact
Libreleft Books