Inbox/Outbox

Over the past ten days, even with the confusion and uncertainty of new DayJob, I have kept at writing… to the point where I wrote myself to a point I did not want to be:  it was if I was going to have to write some spy-adventure novel that would have 13-year old Gary trying to track late 20’s Ryan Gannt across most of Eurasia…

Eff that.

I waited, thought, and drank.  Yesterday, drunk, I found a way out:  subcontracting.  What’s below the fold is a glimpse of that… the negotiations with tribe Mendrovovitch to find and ‘control’ Ryan Gannt before he genocides the machines.  That will allow me to keep the lens on Gary and Henge, where it belongs.

I think, think, mind you, that the end of Part One of WWE is within my grasp.  If they let me see, I should know more by the weekend.

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‘Perfume’ Travelogue

While I had little to no time off in 2018, I’m trying to change that for this year.  In January, of course, we went to Ohayocon.  Now that it’s April, my wife and I took a trip up to Chicago to see the Japanese performance trio Perfume.  We’ve enjoyed their music for years and as they rarely tour North America – and only a few cities – we jumped at the chance.  What follows is a little story of our trip.

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Life Imitates my Art, etc.

Several Russian banks have joined the China International Payments System (CIPS), to ease operations between the two countries, according to a senior official at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).

“As for the cooperation on payment systems, a range of banks are already connected to CIPS, allowing to facilitate payments routing procedure,” Vladimir Shapovalov, who heads a division dealing with foreign regulators at the CBR’s international cooperation department, said earlier this week during the international Russian-Chinese forum.

Wow.  No one saw that coming.

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Live Eyes. Dead Eyes.

After my 3.5 week hiatus between Dayjobs, I’m back to the grind tomorrow.  In the interim, since Ash Wednesday, I was able to lay down almost 18k words for my next novel.  Today, in fact, after hiding from my netbook for two days, they let me see 3800 words of their story!

Monday and Tuesday are merely HR orientation flak; Wednesday and Thursday begin my 10-hour days.  It will be an utter catastrophe if I allow my fifth day off to lapse into indolence.  I have come to see that “Worlds Without End” is going to be a two part book of somewhat unrelated stories but welded together by the same characters over two years.

My original target of completion of Easter is impossible.  I am to have the WWE manuscript complete by May 31st.

Below the fold, I introduce a new, secondary character.  I am tired and must to bed.

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Lent’s 2nd Sunday… PLOT!

Saturday was total fail; I had grown tired – no, tired is not the right word – I had grown tired of writing thousands of words about Gary and his family that are just about Gary and his family.  This is a business, after all.

So I bite the bullet and go get some rye whiskey (swidt?) and dark vermut.  Easter is my cutoff time for such, after all, and outside of Ohayocon I’ve been drinking cheap wine.

Thanks be to God and rye:  I lay down about 1800 words, some of which are below the fold, and at long last, the plot has arrived!  PS  If you’re offended by teens making out, skip what’s below… and get the eff off my blog.

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Lent Day 8 – checking in

Excepting Ash Wednesday, when I was re-reading old material for new ideas, my goal was 1,000 words per day, average.  Today I’m at 8,217.  Better news:  it just may be that the plot is showing up!  A fringe character’s older brother just might be holding a grudge against the machines… and willing to EMP the planet to plunge the remnant of the world into another Dark Age.  Exciting times!

Just to thank you for stopping by, I put a little of the last week under the fold.  Have a good weekend!

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Yippie-kai-yea

Month long books tour over.  Lent begins.  Daily Rosary plus trying for 500-1000 words per day for my next novel.  That fell apart immediately:  for Ash Wednesday I re-read a short/writing exercise called ‘Empire’s Agent’, wherein Hungarian former special ops now diplomat Arpad Rigo visits Lily Barrett in central Texas.  That got me re-thinking enough that the next day I put down 1800 words about how Mr Rigo is in Knoxville on some shady diplo-business, but staying with the Hartmanns.  Since then I’ve got 5,000 words, but the plot hasn’t shown up yet!

So I took another break today… thinking plot-like.  I know the theme of this new novel, with a title such as “Worlds Without End” you know is will embrace both our world, the machine’s world, and the life of the world to come.

I just don’t see how.  Yet.  Some breadcrumbs under the fold:  Rigo has his first dinner at the Hartmann’s place… and is intrigued by Gary and his sister.  Perhaps more later…

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