Ran across this: The Odds are Against Us: A Military-Fiction Anthology. Looks worthwhile; I pledged $15. I’m thinking about cutting a section out of “Defiant” and editing it into a submission for them, as well.
Month: February 2017
Xenophon’s brother
Just over another 10k words this weekend! As I said to a friend of mine, I feel like a wrung-out dish rag. But, once I’d the key – the sight – from late Friday, it was so easy! Part of my last post was just that: Chris and Cat closing the gap between them. What I wrote since then was the 3+1 times they made love (slightly different than having sex), although I only covered #1 and #+1 in detail. That, plus another one of Chris’ recall-dreams of his time at Neuroi Corporation, this time, talking with his kid sister, Maya, made for a fantastic weekend!
Anton is sleeping with Chris & Cat’s next door neighbor; that’s complicated! And he’ll be giving them a tour of the northern ‘no-go’ zones around Camp Pendleton. The civilians of San Diego think the Mexican Army killed about 100k coming south from the 19MM in the LA Basin. Truth is hard, sometimes.
After what he sees, it finally occurs to Chris to reach out to experts beyond him: even machines suffer from the “if I’m good at this, I’m good at everything!” mental illness. The moment he does, he’s going to realize just what he’s overlooked, and how close he and his beloved are to an horrible, violent death.
This is SO COOL!
PS It was pointed out to me by someone in RealLife that my ‘below the folds’ are all banal (my word, not theirs), not ‘the good stuff!’ Well, duh! I welcome everyone into the world I’m making, but this is work, and I want to be paid for it. ‘Defiant’ was, and is, for free. Intellectual property is worth at least, if not more, than physical property. Example: a water pump is worth money; learning how to make a water pump, one or two orders of magnitude more. To continue the analogy, my snippets, in and of themselves, are slightly entertaining. I hope, once complete and edited, y’all think that they plus the other 45k words are worth US$7.
Thank you so much for reading!
Networking
Had to ask my wife about this one: what would a woman do if the object of her desire, whom you thought was unobtainable, was suddenly right in front of you, and open to your affection. For her, for example, if she ran into Kamenashi Kazuya and he invited her for drinks and more….
Her eyes got all dreamy and she began to drool. Once that was under control, she related to me how Cat acts, below the fold. Interesting!
2-days…
… is how long I’ve been thinking about the transition from Maya back to C&C. She’s effectively a week to ten days behind their story, so I need to find a way to bridge that. With my pockets stuffed with scratch paper as I went about my day-job today, I focused on that bridge.
I’d nothing.
Until around 1645. I was looking at the 2/3 page of notes, and realized there was the bare bones of an Act of the story, there. There’ll be some of my characteristic flash-back-forwards, and that, coupled with a ripoff of a scene of “Negima!” involving vampires on campus, should have things ready to go.
And by that, I mean, go to suck: while I may be learning to write horror, my fight scenes are very brief: that may come from having seen real fights rather than what Hollywood sells to us. I desire that the confrontation between Chris and Maya look something like that between Araragi and Kiss-Shot, but that’s not me. I’m thinking more: assault/ hide/talk/… repeat until someone is dead.
Ah, well: I’ve made more than enough food over the last three days, creating left-overs for the next four. I’ve once again told my wimmin-folk: tomorrow, I’m writing; even if the house is burning down, don’t bother me.
Below the fold, Chris sleeps with Cat. Head fake.
“December”
Wow. Never killed a guy during a blowjob. The guy, not me. Well, I was doing the killing… it was Maya…. Never mind; just never mind. Obviously I shan’t be having my teenage daughters proofing that part.
Maya’s at Vancouver International Airport, waiting for one of the rare flights to San Diego. Time to flick back to Chris and Cat (and Anton, too, I guess). Need a double-helping of Relationship Development before a certain someone’s plane touches down. As I learned from “Defiant,” every time I start writing romance, a battle breaks out; so, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I know it will.
Below the fold is Maya taking leave of the acquaintances she made on the freighter, Jodhpur, as it crossed the Pacific. Machine Civilization: it’s one, big, dysfunctional family!
“I ship it!”*
Chris’ transfiguration scene done (backhanded compliment from a valued friend over that one), Maya busted out of the hospital – and boy, does that scene need editing! – to a character focus on her as she passes nine days at sea on the way to North America. Did you know that travel by freighter is about US$100/day? Pricy, but better than an entertainment-cruise line. I’d love something like that: nothing to do but write, drink, and – if she came with me – be with my wife. Who, as we’ve been married for so long, would not even entertain the idea of what’s below the fold. *sigh*
As they say at Instapundit, classic reference* in the headline.
I’ve already written the scene after this: Maya talking to the two Americans on the way back to Portland, Oregon, Former US. The world of ‘Machine Civilization’ is increasingly complete. Still, this needs editing with a jackhammer.
Without being too much of voyeur, I need to see the next Act where Chris and Cat stop acting stupid around one another. I think Anton might take them up to the killing fields of Camp Pendleton, where the Mexican Army killed 100,000+ starving Los Angeles refugees… why take them there? Exposition, duh. After that, Maya shows up in town and BANG.
And by BANG, I mean I start on the sequel. You really think that the powers that be could stop a horror/romance of mine by death? Will Deonne taught me. Bring it.
Dinner.
I’d announced to my family yesterday that there were leftovers in the fridge. I told my wife I’d not be watching anything in the basement, thus not turning on the pellet stove. To all and sundry: leave daddy the eff alone: he’s writing.
It’s 2245 now, past an old man’s bed time, but I’ve 3.2k words for today. MUCH more importantly are the milestones: I’ve radically changed Chris & Cat’s relationship with a pivotal secondary character, and got Chris baptized. Hey, when you consider yourself a writer of nominally Catholic stories, things like that matter.
So: I got the cousins from UCSD to the Hotel del Coronado. Pre-dinner politics. It wasn’t until Cat excused herself to the bathroom that I saw that Anton has lost his mother when he was a boy; that allowed me to radically change the dynamic between these three. This is going to echo through the rest of the novel; probably upping the death-toll, too.
Below the fold is another example of why creative writing sometimes scares me: as recently as two hours ago, not a single idea of any of this existed anywhere inside my head. Sometimes it seems for me that prayer is an ‘SDI’ project.
Back on Rails
Still been too tired at the end of the work-weekdays to write; I’m hoping when it’s not dark by 1830 that might change in my favor. Even so, between last weekend and this one, I’ve over 6k words, so far. I really want to get through the dinner scene at the Hotel del Coronado with Chris, Cat, and Cat’s ex, Anton. As Anton is the son of the General in command of the Mexican Army ‘Stabilization Force’ in San Diego, Cat realizes it’s tricky to tell a guy like that to piss off.
Prior to that, I’d written a segment featuring Yamada Hanako (Japanese slang for ‘Jane Doe’); she’s Maya’s post-car-accident amnesia personality. A pleasant young woman worried about her future. A future cut short when one of her doctors pushes her past under her nose just a little too hard. Attempted murder ensues.
Below the fold, a snapshot of when Cat decides to start working out in the mornings. Chris uses the Five Tibetan Rites. #1 is spinning in place. I almost yakked when I tried it, too.
machciv 