Accelerationism

I have a small, local Author Fair coming up on 9 November.  What if, I wondered, I not only had “Worlds Without End” finished – in less than ten day from now – but what if I also had “Crosses & Doublecrosses,” the third novel I began but set aside over three years ago as 1) I was not old enough to write it, and 2) it is a god-awful story I hated living in, complete?  Is that possible?

I just completed the basic MS.  Grammarly is chewing through it in the the background while I write this.  I have reached out to my current cover designer to sound him on this; that will likely be the determining factor.

Still… I would be something:  a novel and novella, 100k words, all commercially out in less than six weeks.  Irrational deadline drive me; can I make this one?

Below the fold is the last thing I wrote for C&DC:  its Prologue.  There’s closure for you.

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“We call it DeeKay, for short”

Finally!  After banging my head against the six-month rock that was the discrepancy at the beginning of “Crosses & Doublecrosses” I had an idea as I stumbled, drunk, to bed last night.  Deciphering my scrawl of a note this morning, I got it:  Dunning-Kruger.

Dunning-Kruger is a two-sided coin of fail:  on the obverse is the stupid thinking they are not:  “anybody can do that!” said the idiot about to shoot an apple off of his son’s head.  The converse is just as deadly:  “since I’m a smart [profession], I’m smart at everything!”  You’ve read before about my comments when Doctors of Pharmacy try to hang a picture.  It’s a mess.

So in this case, two things happened:  the DK is that Sylvia, having been the best and brightest in the room her whole life, figured that that what she had heard about the Breakup of the US just couldn’t be that bad for someone like her.  The other, much more subtle thing – right at the end of this rewritten opening – is an allusion to one of the Machines we have never met, Ninon.

With this in mind I can FIX THE NOVELLA!  With the help of a miracle I might have it done by Thanksgiving.  If you like these updates and stories, please keep praying for my liver.

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Little Details

Submitted WWE for my US Copyright this morning, making it my seventh.  Also did the basics to set things up on KDP.  The outstanding issue remains my copyeditor:  I gave her this project in early June.  She told me it would be in my hands 1 September… then nothing… I write her… snarky note back…

I’ve been very pleased to work with Monica for three years now without a single complaint.  We all have RealLife issues, but after three months I get ghosted?  After three years?  WTF?  In the meantime I re-ran WWE through Grammarly and farmed it out to a couple of proofreaders; that’s what I uploaded to KDP to order a physical proof.  This time it will be a two-step process rather than one to catch most of the mistakes.

Having done all that, I am still faced with the time discrepancy of my novella, “Crosses & Doublecrosses.”  As you can see, I did some basic work to find out where I stand:  an error of what I am calling six months.  Sylvia and Roberta Fernandez land at Dallas/Ft Worth Airport from Manila just as the Breakup is unfolding in the US.  But they can’t; there is  no way.  For the rest of the 32k-word story to work they have to land six months later.  But if they do, the opening, as written, makes no sense.  Okay, I can re-write the opening.  To what?  If they were back in Manila watching the US tear itself to pieces, with easily over a million dead in those first six months, why in the hell would they come back?  Sure, their family lives in Manhattan but just how long do you think that place will last with no food coming in and the lights going out for good after two weeks?

Why did they come back?  I can swing the flight into Texas:  they have two of maybe four functioning airports in the former US.  Sylvia is a brilliant lawyer; does she think she’s going to drive to New York from there?  Is she that stupid?

Questions, questions.  I’m going to ask the wine bottle for answers.

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Getting Graphic

With my copyeditor seeming to have some issues right now, I’m falling back on Grammarly and some proofreaders for the first edit of “Worlds Without End.”  We’ll see how that pans out once I’ve a physical proof copy in my hands.  Shame, really; Monica has been a source of strength to my works for four years now.

In the mean time, here’s the penultimate cover, from Jacoby Alley Designs.  Professional, nimble, responsive.  If any of my readers are self-publishing, please reach out to them for a talk and/or a quote.  I’ve much to do:  my deadline of 30 September is upon me.

 

WWE FOR REVIEW - STANDARD 8 SEPT VERS 3

Lead Balloon (?)

In writing, unlike retail, the reader is usually but not always correct.  The fact that I was sailing serenely on with all the “likes” to the ‘Empire’s Agent’ short story, only to have NONE for the last installment, surprised me.  I reread it and came up with some possibilities… there most certainly might be others (mild spoilers for Empire’s Agent – End)

  1.  Ended too suddenly.  Admittedly, many of my stories do, especially the shorter ones; I’m not Peter Jackson to write and make four endings when one will do.
  2.  Too Catholic.  Arpad and Lily are about to get it on in a pleasant forest clearing when Henge jerks them into her home to stop what she sees as a clear and present danger to her step-mom:  mortal sin.  Perhaps my readers are more secular than I think they are?
  3.  Lily realizes she’s pregnant the day after her wedding.  I’ve hear Millennials generally don’t like kids, so was that a turn-off?

I am seriously puzzled by this one, friends.

Empire’s Agent – End

Finally!  And what a way to end!  This 21k “short story” will be the anchor of my collection of similar for my book in the early months of 2020.  Right now I think the shorts will be arranged chronologically, so this will be pretty much in the middle.  To-date this gives me ~31k words for that book; I’ll try to flesh one of them out a little more and am sure I’ll have one or two come to my mind in the next few months.

This was a lot of fun!  Unfortunately what comes next, besides the final edit of “Worlds Without End” is the last tweaks to the awful “Crosses & Doublecrosses.”  Yuck.

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Satur-Date!

Finally!  Saturday and it’s time for Arpad and Lily’s date!  Here’s the lead in and parts one and two.  I’m hoping to see part three (when they talk together in the park) later today and tomorrow.  My goal is have their last scene – which is going round and round in my head – no later than Tuesday.  After that I will turn my attention to my “Worlds Without End” edit to get it released by 30 September.

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