Month: November 2022

Colour’s Reprimand

Another semi-anticipated break. Even with Thanksgiving here in FUSA, I was still six half-days straight at DayJob. At least for Turkey Day, Daughter #1 was home for two days from college. She’s stressing about the last classes in her senior year. Then, Saturday afternoon, I had a slice of apple pie. Since no one had got sick over the last 48 hours, I had some odd reaction to it which presented just like food poisoning, so found myself wrapped around the toilet all night. Some pharmacists I work with suggested it might be “sucrase-isomaltase deficiency”; normally congenital, people who have been on a low carb diet for a long time – such as me – can develop a very bad reaction to refined sugar. If that means no more sweets, I’m fine with that. We’ll see what happens.

Speaking of happening, this picks up right where the last installment left off, with Ed on his way and Colour trying to come up to speed to the new situation. Aurie tries to get all “humans are beneath my concern now” and Colour calls her on it. It made me think of the old Windows XP meme: “Task Failed Successfully.”

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A Colour to Trust

Largely back up and running. Not writing for nearly a week was horrible. There are still a few s/w sets I need to reload onto Rory (the new machine’s name) but I can at least type.

Getting back to the story, things, as you will read, and changing rapidly. Aurie is about to get a baptism of fire in international power politics, where who you think is a friend or rival could surprise you. Faustina had the advantage of putting together the imperium in something of a power vacuum. Aurelia is in it now, up to her neck.

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The Colour of Politics

A few days ago had my laptop not working. Not quite a “Blue Screen of Death,” but more a Blue Screen of Imminent Doom. I was able to boot to a flash drive and verify my data was intact, but that was all. Not wanting to make matters worse, I passed it on to an IT guy I know. He was able to reload Windows past the \BCD error but pointed out that at seven years old, I’d best start planning a new machine.

All data is now re-backed up on a remote HDD and I’ve ordered another laptop. I do not want to reload everything on this one just to do it all again on my new one in a week, so these updates will fall away for the next ten days or so. I’m still writing – can’t stop, or I’ll die, but I’m using Word 0.1: pen and paper; I’ll have to retype everything! First World Problems! It’s also so much slower… I’m making more notes than dialog as I cannot scribble fast enough: Reina’s demands about Mars, the Empress’ change of plans with Edward, Aurie now on her own, and – as I suspected – the Minor Powers, Canada, Mexico, Texas, smell blood in the water. All when we now know that Aurelia has a dangerous, violent streak. Not sure what Colour’s “come from behind home run” might be, but I’m counting on her.

As you can see from the story text, below, this is from WordPad. So, the formatting is completely different. I’ll do better when I get my new machine. And give her a name. What? Of course I name my machines… don’t you?

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Colour’s Crazy Friend

A slightly larger installment as I wanted to wrap of the visit and get these two on their way. There are politics on the horizon and Aurie has to “get in character,” so to speak. She knows how to do that as a general and I think is still not entirely sure what to do as regent. Obviously, “not break anything before my aunt gets back” is probably her Item #1.

That might be tricky for someone who loves their berserker-streak. Her grandparents act as if it’s a mental illness. Maybe it is.

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Colour Preference

The talk about MacRae, one of the secondary antagonists from “World Without End,” is background to when-and-if Colour ever tries to pin Aurie down on the imperium’s racial policies. Things might start to move too fast in few thousand words for that to come about.

Just because she’s 52 and sterile does not mean Colour has no physical desires (my wife just yelled “don’t write about me!”). The two men in Nova Scotia and now Aurie’s grandfather are more than enough to get her juices flowing again. Aurie, of course, cannot help but tease. Jansen should smack her.

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Empty Colours

We confirm something I’ve long suspected about Henge. I mentioned in my writing exercise, Cadets (pts 1-4), but until published in meatspace I don’t really consider some idea I play with to be canonical. As this MS also isn’t published, Henge’s condition is not technically set but I’m proceeding as if it is. I do wonder: if she could ever find another functioning fusion reactor or engine, and put herself into the equipotential flux point, could she reassemble her body? Pull nanomaterials from some other point of herself to fashion eggs? She’d certainly need help from the Thinking Machines to do that.

And, shedding? A regenerative effect? That was completely new to me, as well.

I like how Aurie is so unassuming: a bar of soap to wash a Regent’s hair? No fancy shampoos and conditioners for her!

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Colour of Angels

Finally had two days off in a row and was able to get much done. Enough to keep posting updates for the next few days.

I vaguely remembered the effect that Henge’s newly manifested body had on the people in and around Knoxville, now a generation ago. I thought to examine that a little closer, this miracle of diamond dust and star fire.

Not sure how to handle the next few scenes; I know I’ll be moving hard and fast into internal imperial politics. But I also want to see Colour meet Aurie’s grandparents at their snug home on the road to Oak Ridge. I think, with Aurie’s grandma being Min Chinese, I might be able to add some clarity to the imperium’s racial policies. I know any discussion of race makes modern Americans freak out.

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Air Colour

Productive couple of days, thankfully. And I know where the material will be going for several more installments. Lots of clever things ahead. I may even have a clue as to what happened to Allen Rupert at the end of “A Texas Naval Affair.”

All the way back to “Worlds Without End,” I’d forgotten how much Gary detests his sister’s politics and how it enmeshed his family.

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Shenandoah Colours

Gotta love “handwavium:” so, six hundred miles later… Does anyone really want to hear about their saddle sores? I cover that (so to speak) in “Goddess Crusade” when Faustina has her problems. Fussy being Fussy, she uses it to get her much-older boyfriend into bed

We meet Aurie’s father. From “Worlds Without End” on, he detests politics and just wants to be with his fiancee, later wife, Henge. But there is that old adage: “you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”

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Colour’s Plea

Something a recapitulation of the last few installments but once this is book, I want those scenes clear in the reader’s minds as I’m going to gloss nearly their entire 600-mile ride and go immediately into imperium politics, internal, external, familial. There will suddenly be a lot of names thrown at the screen. In the book you will be able to flip to the front to the family tree and go, “oh, that’s who this is.” Not really bothering with that here.

Colour’s letter is in blockquotes but formatting WordPress is not worth the bother.

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