Going into a lovely early Fall weekend with little to do? Need something to while away time with the cool breeze and falling leaves? If you have not yet, download and read “The Fourth Law” and “Echoes of Family Lost” FOR FREE (while you can!) then go on to read the latest addition to my future history of Machine Civilization just now released! Cheers!
In writing, unlike retail, the reader is usually but not always correct. The fact that I was sailing serenely on with all the “likes” to the ‘Empire’s Agent’ short story, only to have NONE for the last installment, surprised me. I reread it and came up with some possibilities… there most certainly might be others (mild spoilers for Empire’s Agent – End)
I am seriously puzzled by this one, friends.
Finally! And what a way to end! This 21k “short story” will be the anchor of my collection of similar for my book in the early months of 2020. Right now I think the shorts will be arranged chronologically, so this will be pretty much in the middle. To-date this gives me ~31k words for that book; I’ll try to flesh one of them out a little more and am sure I’ll have one or two come to my mind in the next few months.
This was a lot of fun! Unfortunately what comes next, besides the final edit of “Worlds Without End” is the last tweaks to the awful “Crosses & Doublecrosses.” Yuck.
Finally! Saturday and it’s time for Arpad and Lily’s date! Here’s the lead in and parts one and two. I’m hoping to see part three (when they talk together in the park) later today and tomorrow. My goal is have their last scene – which is going round and round in my head – no later than Tuesday. After that I will turn my attention to my “Worlds Without End” edit to get it released by 30 September.
I am, by many measures, a failure as a human. I have no empathy, no sympathy. I am not emotionally expressive. This past weekend we saw Daughter #1 formally off to college. My wife was a wreck. I gave my girl a hug and said “call or text if you’ve problems; later.”
It’s not that I don’t have and express emotions, it’s that I choose where to do it and even then can get blind-sided. I thought the short story of “Old Friends” was going to be a harmless reunion. Until I was more than halfway into the project did they show me that John Brunelli was unwell. Nichole’s reaction to that was so severe that I was unable to write. Yes, you read that correctly: a character’s reaction to a revelation in my own head was so strong I couldn’t function properly.
I was finally able to sneak up on it in pieces. I could split it, but why make y’all any more miserable than I was? Here’s the last part of “Old Friends.” I so need to write something light and fluffy next…
I’m aware the raw manuscript of C&DC needs attention. Screw that. I know I need a few more shorts for my short story collexion that will be three books hence. As a result, I saw something from having re-read a line from “Foes and Rivals,” where sergeant John Brunelli makes a promise to Nichole 5.
How long would that take? What sort or world would these people be living in by then? I made some notes (mostly questions to myself), sat down, and got this. About 1700 word; and this story is just beginning. I wonder where it will go?
The rough of Part Two of “Crosses & Doublecrosses” is complete. I’ve worked ahead to fix some contextual errors in the relatively small Part Three. Much like Jackson’s “Return of the King,” part 3 consists of a series of endings: lives, a person, a life.
Besides that, I’m aware that waaay back in the start of Part One my timing/dating is completely off: Sylvia and her sister Roberta arrive in Dallas as the Breakup is unfolding in the US just then. They shortly get summoned to ExComm HQ in Austin. From what already exists in my novels of Machine Civilization, that doesn’t work: it was at least three months before Clive Barrett left Japan for the US to find his eldest daughter in Ohio. That, also, would be at least three more months. Then his travel to Texas and the formation of ExComm. Minimum eight months; maximum twelve, total. Let’s split the difference and call it ten. So: why, ten months into the collapse of the US, did Sylvia and Roberta fly from the relative safety of their extended family in upper-class Manila into an effective warzone in Dallas, Texas?
No clue. Hope they show me.
