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.
Category: Catholicism
Departing Friends
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…
Old Friends
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?
Bad End, 1/2
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.
Sacraments
This bridges to the last installment of Part 2. All that’s left is Gary’s visit with Robert, escalating to a meeting of some/several of the Council, and whatever political fallout there is of that.
Then they all go to Mass on Sunday. Henge has a seizure and Part 2 ends. After the resolution of the seizure; I’m an ass but not that big of one.
Inbox/Outbox
Over the past ten days, even with the confusion and uncertainty of new DayJob, I have kept at writing… to the point where I wrote myself to a point I did not want to be: it was if I was going to have to write some spy-adventure novel that would have 13-year old Gary trying to track late 20’s Ryan Gannt across most of Eurasia…
Eff that.
I waited, thought, and drank. Yesterday, drunk, I found a way out: subcontracting. What’s below the fold is a glimpse of that… the negotiations with tribe Mendrovovitch to find and ‘control’ Ryan Gannt before he genocides the machines. That will allow me to keep the lens on Gary and Henge, where it belongs.
I think, think, mind you, that the end of Part One of WWE is within my grasp. If they let me see, I should know more by the weekend.
Live Eyes. Dead Eyes.
After my 3.5 week hiatus between Dayjobs, I’m back to the grind tomorrow. In the interim, since Ash Wednesday, I was able to lay down almost 18k words for my next novel. Today, in fact, after hiding from my netbook for two days, they let me see 3800 words of their story!
Monday and Tuesday are merely HR orientation flak; Wednesday and Thursday begin my 10-hour days. It will be an utter catastrophe if I allow my fifth day off to lapse into indolence. I have come to see that “Worlds Without End” is going to be a two part book of somewhat unrelated stories but welded together by the same characters over two years.
My original target of completion of Easter is impossible. I am to have the WWE manuscript complete by May 31st.
Below the fold, I introduce a new, secondary character. I am tired and must to bed.
Lent’s 2nd Sunday… PLOT!
Saturday was total fail; I had grown tired – no, tired is not the right word – I had grown tired of writing thousands of words about Gary and his family that are just about Gary and his family. This is a business, after all.
So I bite the bullet and go get some rye whiskey (swidt?) and dark vermut. Easter is my cutoff time for such, after all, and outside of Ohayocon I’ve been drinking cheap wine.
Thanks be to God and rye: I lay down about 1800 words, some of which are below the fold, and at long last, the plot has arrived! PS If you’re offended by teens making out, skip what’s below… and get the eff off my blog.
Lent Day 8 – checking in
Excepting Ash Wednesday, when I was re-reading old material for new ideas, my goal was 1,000 words per day, average. Today I’m at 8,217. Better news: it just may be that the plot is showing up! A fringe character’s older brother just might be holding a grudge against the machines… and willing to EMP the planet to plunge the remnant of the world into another Dark Age. Exciting times!
Just to thank you for stopping by, I put a little of the last week under the fold. Have a good weekend!
Yippie-kai-yea
Month long books tour over. Lent begins. Daily Rosary plus trying for 500-1000 words per day for my next novel. That fell apart immediately: for Ash Wednesday I re-read a short/writing exercise called ‘Empire’s Agent’, wherein Hungarian former special ops now diplomat Arpad Rigo visits Lily Barrett in central Texas. That got me re-thinking enough that the next day I put down 1800 words about how Mr Rigo is in Knoxville on some shady diplo-business, but staying with the Hartmanns. Since then I’ve got 5,000 words, but the plot hasn’t shown up yet!
So I took another break today… thinking plot-like. I know the theme of this new novel, with a title such as “Worlds Without End” you know is will embrace both our world, the machine’s world, and the life of the world to come.
I just don’t see how. Yet. Some breadcrumbs under the fold: Rigo has his first dinner at the Hartmann’s place… and is intrigued by Gary and his sister. Perhaps more later…
machciv 