Background;noise

Never really meant to go dark like that.  A few unrelated – that is, closely related – things happened at once I was left to manage them.

Firstly, the revised, re-edited, and re-covered edition of my first novel, “The Fourth Law,” is now loose in the wild!  I am once again thankful to my copyeditor for all her hard work.  In close relation to that…

At the suggestion of another writer, I am going to try serializing T4L on wattpad for a couple of weeks to see if it gets any traction.  So, if you’re too cheap to spring for the ninety-nine cents for the Kindle edition, and too lazy to post a review afterward, you can read along for free for at least another ten days.

While I was setting all that up, my copyeditor delivered the re-edit of “Echoes of Family Lost.”  I applied most of her recommendations – I’ll never say ‘Asian’ for ‘Oriental’! – and should have the physical proof copy of that in my hands tomorrow.  If all’s well, it shall be re-released by this weekend.

Not wanting her idle and, besides weekends, not having a day off since January, I made a four-day weekend out of this last.  I’ve been doing the work of 1.6 people since the end of December and I needed a tanjed break.  Besides sleeping until noon I also have nearly finished my editing pass of what was ‘Defiant’ and is now “The Saga of Nichole5:  Friend & Ally.”  I’ll need a cover for that so shall be setting up another campaign on 99designs in a couple of weeks.

Actual writing-wise, a year after I said I would I am finally typing out as much of the oral history of my father-in-law as I can recall, especially as regards his service in WWII and time in Hungary’s gulag.  Hopefully I can get all the basics complete in no more than three weeks… I still want to know more about Gary’s younger sister, Faustina.

So again, apologies.  I’ll try to do better in the coming days!

The Second Bridge, Coda, pt5 (end)

Short?  Sure it is.  Abrupt?  I don’t think so.  Lampshade hung?  I thought I did, both in the main story and this coda.

Consider:  the “short” story of ‘The Second Bridge’ came in at 11.4k words.  This “little” bonus ending is 4900 words.  Sometimes, no matter how interesting these people are, I need to walk away for other projects.

To wit:  my copyeditor has returned the 2nd edition of ‘Echoes of Family Lost.’  This weekend shall be spent implementing those changes.  I tell you:  no matter how you might prize your storytelling, when an editor hands back a manuscript – that you thought was fine – essentially bleeding red ink… it’s an incredibly humbling experience.

Thanks, everyone, for reading about Henge and her families.  I hope you love them all as much as I do.  After this weekend’s editing, we’ll be off again!

Continue reading “The Second Bridge, Coda, pt5 (end)”

The Second Bridge, Coda, pt4

Question:  is there anyone, besides me, stupid enough to think that I would wrap things up tonight?  I really planned and wanted to.  It’s all in my head!  But it’s already 1.5L bottle of wine o’clock and tomorrow’s DayJob promises to be awful.

Part Five is it!  I swear!  Even if I have to wait three days and make it 10k words long!

Continue reading “The Second Bridge, Coda, pt4”

Life Imitates My Art; again

From chapter six (beginning page 90) of Cursed Hearts.  Christopher, Cat, and Anton are finishing dinner at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego:

“Brother,” Chris ventured, liking the sound of it, “does not the sea look odd to you, this night?”

In Anton’s exhale before turning left to look, Chris guestimated their host’s level of drunkenness.

“Hmmm!” Anton narrowed his eyes. “For the security of the state, I shall investigate this!”

He stood, not at all unsteady, and began walking purposefully toward the beach. With a glance at one another, Chris and Cat did, too. They wound their way through the few outbuildings of the hotel, catching up with him just at the sand. Leaning on a lamp post, Anton shucked his shoes and peeled off his socks.

“Follow me!” He called.

They did similarly. Not knowing if Cat saw, Chris did note the driver about eight paces behind them. They trotted to catch up with Anton. The tide was in, so he was only a dozen yards ahead.

“What… what’s with the surf?” Cat asked.

Each small breaker that came in was foaming in an odd, almost electric blue. Lines of the same blue were flashing up and down the strand, as if parts of the sea were sending messages to itself.

“Amazing!” Cat breathed. “What’s going on? Anton! Wait!”

He was rolling up his slacks to his knees. Was he thinking of going out in that?!

“Bioluminescence,” Chris said.

“What?”

“This is a rare event: a type of algae-bloom that emits light.” He pointed right to where a wave seemed to crackle in with blue fire. “Wait for that to withdraw, then run and jump hard on that spot!”

“Jump…?”

“Now, Cat!”

With enough wine in her to follow anyone’s orders, she sprinted the fifteen feet then jumped into the air. Her feet came down hard onto the wet, compacted sand.

A bright pulse of light blue light surged up and down the beach.

“Oh my God!” Cat cried. “That was sooo cool!”

Bioluminescence in the sea off San Diego.  Who would write about such a thing?

The Second Bridge, Coda, pt3

Ate dinner.  Put down 800 words.  No one else here.  Why the heck not keep going? So:  1200.

I’ll be wrapping all this up – well, sorta – in part 4.  Gary figures out what he wants to do with his life and we flick back to ‘present time’ with Lauren and Henge riding home after fishing.  I learned something very surprising about present-time Henge today!

Continue reading “The Second Bridge, Coda, pt3”

The Second Bridge, Coda, pt2

This is taking on a life of its own.  Just as most of my stories do.  I’m not letting myself get dragged into a discussion of biomechanics for pt3, so I’ll deal with that as quickly as I can.  Especially as I’ve heard Gary’s last words in the last scene.  I must return to the 2nd edition of Echoes of Family Lost and the copy-edit of The Saga of Nichole5.

I also must keep writing each day.  Tricky, that.

Continue reading “The Second Bridge, Coda, pt2”

The Second Bridge, Coda, pt1

I was just tooling around the keyboard, kinda thinking I’d write a story about Faustina.  I wrote two paragraphs.  Two days went by.  Nothing.  I looked at the third paragraph.

“I can turn this into a glimpse both into what happened after Henge was made, as well as a tinier glimpse eighteen months into her future.”

And…

“Who’s Lauren?”

I deleted the first two paragraphs and tried again.

Continue reading “The Second Bridge, Coda, pt1”

Clue-by-fore

Walking away from the keyboard yesterday – but never from all those in mind – at dinner I chuckled to my wife, “…nothing I’m writing right now!  Guess I could just throw…”

She looked up as I trailed off.  Now well knowing that far-off look I get when imagining, she kept her peace.  I came back to myself (someday, I think, I shan’t) and looked up.

“A novel on the cheap:  I take the 36k words/9 stories I wrote during Lent, toss in the 12k from Empire’s Agent, come up with one more, and call it an anthology of short stories of Machine Civilization.” As this was business and not creation, she looked to Daughter #1 and asked about her homework.

I thought about it more today.  Initially, I despaired:  the 2nd longest story, Abandoned Factory, is set in a borrowed world, that of Yoshitoshi ABe’s Haibane Renmei.  Japanese copyrights never expire!  I’d have to toss that one out!  Later, tired in the afternoon, I recalled Comiket and the Japanese doujinshi industry:  light novels, manga, anime, a goodly portion of which are entirely based on other’s works.  And sold commercially…

I’ve still some legal matters to follow on, but “Machine Civilization Dreams,” a compendium of 11-12 short stories covering nearly twenty years in that world, is a distinct possibility!

 

Books Spring 2018