Bloodlines

I swear… I SWEAR that there is shooting in the next installment.  I’ve already written it, so trust me.  It’s just that I think it is so much more interesting to listen to them rather than *pew*pew* and *boom*boom*.  It will be impressive once adapted into a visual series but it just takes up space in my mind and in my pages.

We get to know Ryland, a ‘normie’ but genius human, a little bit better.  She’s not the self-centered shit I thought she was last week.  That is one of the reasons I so love this job:  discovery.  Had I never on a whim written “The Fourth Law” five years ago, I’d not have met Lily.  In the next book, her sister, Callie.  Several books on, writing about Callie’s son and girlfriend, I met Faustina.  And now her cousin.  If this is not a miracle then tell me what is.

Continue reading “Bloodlines” →

Up the Yazoo

Which, for my overseas readers, is an actual river and city in the State of Mississippi.  Faustina has to move fast:  both to prove herself as a legionary commander and to show that she’s better than humans.  In this segment, the first of two before the Battle of Winona (there will finally be shooting, I promise), she schools her distant relations on strategy and tactics in the former US as well as that attacking the enemy’s mind is always more effective than attacking their body.

I am also older that to write a campaign, you have to plan a campaign.  A visual example of that is at the very end of this entry.

Continue reading “Up the Yazoo” →

Take Me to the River

My wife wafted through the dining room where I write.  “When did your Breakup stories stop being fiction?” she asked.

I never wanted any of this.  It was just to be a backdrop to the relationships I saw.

Anyway.  Part Two of “Empress’ Crusade” begins!  As is my wont, I skip forward almost three months and put Faustina at her destination:  Vicksburg.  But, as her father pointed out, and her uncle told her brother, “anyone can get into trouble; it’s the professionals who get out alive.”  I think I’m about to see what that looks like.

Continue reading “Take Me to the River” →