“Hurts,” she tried to mumble. The surface beneath felt hard. The bright lights, even through her eyelids, inflamed the sparks of pain shooting through her skull. Her stomach felt worse.

“Doctor?” her father’s voice, anxious and worried, came from somewhere on her right.

“Oh, she’s fine. The medication keeps her sedated.”

“But…”

“I said, she’s fine.”

“Perhaps he could give her some water,” Aria suggested.

“I don’t need your help,” snapped the doctor. “But, yes, yes, he can do that much. Bottle and straw there.”

Her head pounded. She tried again to speak. No one noticed.

“Here, Kaylah.”

She felt a straw inserted into her mouth. She tried to swallow, her tongue thick and dry.

“Come on, drink it, honey,” said her father. He gave the bottle a squeeze.

The rush of water was too much. She started choking.

Salvage Background: The Transit

Episode 1 of Salvage finds our protagonist on her way to another planet.

Spreading to the Stars

Interstellar travel has been around for awhile, about a hundred and fifty years or so, and now humankind is colonizing other planets. Space is vast, and suitable planets are few, but, in addition to the handful of colony worlds, man also has spread out in ships to build space stations, mining operations, fabrication centers, and more.

Humans are the only known sentient life form.

Kaylah’s Journey

Kaylah is traveling with her family to Perth, a new colony world. The colony founders, a much smaller group, are already on-planet preparing for the second wave of settlers, including Kaylah and her family, to arrive on the aging transport, Brio’s Hope.

Rate of Travel

The settlers are not wealthy by Earth’s standards. Most colonists are not. The wealthy travel on the large, luxurious starliners which speed across the inky darkness to tourist spots before zipping back to Earth. The settlers travel on cheaper, slower transports.

Image of girl like Kaylah by Enrique Meseguer on Pixabay

Kaylah: Salvage’s Protagonist

Character Notes on Kaylah

The protagonist of the Salvage series is Kaylah. Here are a few of my notes about her. Read more about her specifically in these posts or read more about Salvage here.

Naming Kaylah

Since Kaylah is part Cajun, I considered quite a few names for her:

Kaylah's father is part Cajun: Acadiana Louisiana Region, Wikimedia,
licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Acadiana Louisana Region, Wikimedia

Top Names: Ezelle, Zellie

Cajun girl names: Acadia, Adrienne, Alette, Alexandrine, Alexia, Ameline, Avoyelles, Cezelia, Edmee (Edmay), Eliette, Ezora, Karelle, Karine, Katia, Leonie, Marielle, Sidonie, Zeline

Other names: Kirra, Kira, Tyra, Tirra, Thea, Kyrine, Kireen, Zelelle, Kette, Cadia, Elonie, Zelia, Ezelle

Cajun Vs. Acadian

A Side Note

Wikipedia lumps Cajun, Acadian, and Creole folk in together a bit more than I would. While I believe southern Louisiana is a melting pot of ethnicity, subcultures exist even today.
A friend in college was offended if you called him, or his family, Cajun. They had been in Louisiana for many generations long before the Cajuns showed up.
I never heard him use the word Acadian, but I think that’s with whom he would identify.

Kaylah’s Description

Logically minded, yet not logical about her gift. She suffers from a delay in processing negative emotions, which causes her problems. Blind spots. Socially inept,

Short curly black hair. Petite. Voracious mind. Unsophisticated. Knows a great deal about space, especially astronomy. Easily blushes. Thin.

Likes to move sometimes when thinking or dealing with something. Awkward when watched. Quiet unless you know her well. Loner. Introvert. Anxiety issues. Processes emotions after the fact.

She sometimes offends people without knowing because of her emotional immaturity. Naïve. Gift of encouragement, tries to help others, likes to feel needed; loyal; unlucky; defends the innocent; persistent, courageous, kind, ingenius, loyal, weird sense of humor; doesn’t know how charming she is to other people (some of them, anyway). On occasion spunky.

Father is part Cajun, mother is a heartland mix of Irish, English, Scottish, German.

What Does She Want?

To survive. To be accepted by others. To be left alone. To study the stars.

What Lies Does She Believe?

People will reject her. She’s a freak and a failure. She’s not lovable. She doesn’t fit in anywhere. Space is safe. Her family is normal. She can be an astronomer even on the colony planet.

Water Reclamation in Space: Salvage Story Research

Let’s talk some background for the Salvage series: the science facts behind water reclamation in space.

Although the series isn’t meant to be hard science fiction — I’m sure serious pundits can poke holes in the technical aspects a parsec long — here are a few notes about existing technology onboard the International Space Station. 1 Continue reading Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2020 Cindy Rae Johnson

the wolf is always at the door

Uncertainty, Trust, and Steadiness: March Status

Trust, steadiness, and uncertainty have been hallmarks of my life in the past month. But, then, uncertainty is always part of life.

The wolf is always just outside the door.

Sometimes we conveniently forget in our comfortable American lives that calamity can strike at any moment. Whether a pandemic or cancer, an economic depression or a terrible car accident, bad things happen.

Good things happen, too.

Whether good or bad, I’m resting on the rock of my faith, my faith in the salvation of Jesus Christ. How about you?

During uncertainty, steadiness and trust at home in winter

God’s got this.

With my circumstances, I’ve always had quite a few responsibilities and issues that pull me away from writing. God has resolved two of the rocks and hard places in my life, for which I’m immeasurably grateful.

With a husband who works from home, with me home writing, homeschooling, and preparing to go back to work full-time remotely, our COVID impacts so far have not been extensive. But, surprisingly, for this introvert, I’m getting cabin fever.

Writing status?

I’m actually making progress — on the novel, on writing-as-a-business, and my writing ability. I still have a long way to go on honing my writing skills, but I can recognize that I’ve “leveled up” in my writing.

I’m drafting Salvage‘s final scenes. As I write the scenes I’ve planned, more aspects of the story come to light, and more is added to my when-I-revise list.

In this section our protagonist is (mostly) out of the action, so my secondary protagonist, Emmett, is full-front in the story. It’s through him the secondary plot thread of ship dangers is revealed. As his character will not be in the next two books of the series, and his part in book #1 isn’t predominant, I need to keep him a little more shallow than Kaylah.

It’s tricky enough to handle two protagonists, but I needed both. And there are good resources out there, like this one from Jerry Jenkins about Left Behind.

Uncertainty to Certainty

I’m not branching out to writing blogs or copywriting, although I toyed with the idea for awhile. I’m focusing on my novel and on refreshing my software skills to land that full-time remote job.

February 2020 Review and Status

So, a review of February:

A review: a screenshot of Ep1, Part 4 outline of Salvage

Thankfully, I experienced productive writing time in February. I’m drafting part 4 of episode 1 of Salvage — nearing the end! I’ve also “leveled up” in writing craft, gaining a better sense of story development.

My alter-ego as a software developer can be found at CodeOnward.com

In personal news, I’m ramping up to return to software development full-time over at Code Onward. I’m hoping circumstances will allow me to pursue both creative pursuits — writing and development — in full force.

The cold winter is easing; the tulips and daffodils and surprise lilies are poking up green shoots. Can’t wait until the first blooms!

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Salvage Outtake: Hydroponics

In a very early draft of Salvage, Episode 1, I had Kaylah working in the hydroponics garden onboard Brio’s Hope. Here’s the hydroponics outtake:

As the words finally penetrated, Kaylah whirled around, tripping over her own feet before racing back the way she came. A few minutes later, she arrived at the farm, a plant nursery in a narrow hold on the port side. She stumbled over the hatch and gasped at first sight of the plants. All she could see in the front bay were dead or dying, the wilting of leaves pronounced or dry. Adults were shouting around her, their tones frantic and demanding.

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