Category: creative writing

Knoxville Shopping Trip, 4/x

Keeping house, seeing to your children and man, feeding them and keeping them healthy and happy, there is no better job in the world. I know many will find this idea outdated if not hateful. That does not mean it is not true.

A Machine-turned-human, made of “diamond dust and star-stuff,” Henge could be any thing she want to be. And, so, she did. A quiet little transition; I bet Aurie will be bursting through their front door like a bomb in the next segment.

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Knoxville Shopping Trip, 3/x

Henge gets a little testy and reminds the visitors that “good manners don’t cost nuthin’.” In her appearances in my books, she is unfailingly polite but a ferocious defender of her family. I was curious to see if she would “act up” just for herself. And she answered me.

The story looks to broaden a bit this weekend, what with their fam together. I’ll have to sit on Aurie to make sure she does not hijack the story. Something which will be interesting is all four of them are demis; over dinner, they can cover more material in fifteen minutes than humans could in hours. That, also, will be very tricky for me to write. But, that’s why I do this: to let them push me.

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Knoxville Shopping Trip, 1/x

After all the drama around Bright Eyes, I honestly wanted something banal if not boring. So, turning back about twenty years, we have Henge Hartmann going to the market. She’s already had her two children and is a housewife who wants nothing more than to be a good wife and mother. Given what she is, her immediate family, and married into the imperial family, it is a bit more complicated that it first seems. I am looking forward to seeing where she takes me with this story.

The idea behind this is very, very loosely based upon Yokohama Shopping Trip. The lead there is also not human and their world is also changed. It is a brilliant but sometimes confusing manga and a warm, soothing anime. Five stars.

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Bright Eyes, 5/?

A tiny bit of backstory on Josh’s part. No doubt Liz knows most of it, but I’m old enough to know sometimes internal family lore has things which written records do not. Witness my father-in-law making me swear to never tell his daughter, my wife, what happened to him on the Eastern Front and in the AVO gulag.

On a personal note, it seems I may soon have a great deal more time to write.

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Bright Eyes, 4/?

They are so darling together, aren’t they? Let’s hope this bottle of gin doesn’t have a Tragic End at the bottom of it. I usually don’t. Usually. The end of one of my books is absolutely horrible. The end of Foes & Rivals is tragic as regards what Nichole 5’s mission was, but not horrid, as we get to see many of the players in later short stories and with walk-ons in a few novels. I don’t think that is where this going.

Even in A Texas Naval Affair, Fussy was faced with her cousin wanted to wed a former thug. Not exactly an adornment to the imperial family, but that mostly turned out well. Mostly.

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Bright Eyes, 3/?

One of the things I am just now realizing it that by being away from these people for just over four months, details that I knew better than my meatspace relatives become clouded or lost. In this case, while I knew Liz’s bio-dad dies in an accident (and her mom later remarries), I screwed up the dating. So, Liz cannot be 25; hell, she can barely be 18, and that still might be wrong. So, Josh is now just turned 23, while they were working on the moon.

So, when I’m starting to edit all of this into my third short story collection, I’d have to be very careful. I’ve made myself some notes in the Word file, so I don’t forget. Again.

Below the fold, Josh learns a little more about what is pending-wife is. And there’s a little romance for these kids who are now both years younger.

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Bright Eyes, 1/?

A short story about the first child of Empress Faustina. Demi-human, she considers herself a scientist and engineer, most recently working for the Thinking Machine, Ninon, of tribe Tohsaka, on a radar search array on the other side of the moon. While there, a human man, a few years older, catches her eyes, her bright yellow eyes. They have much work to do, so she says nothing. Until it is time to go back to Earth.

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Annexation (5/4 End)

Strange week; much RealLife drama I do not need. Picking at another short story, but nothing really clicking yet. I shall be patient.

Most autocrats enjoy it when people stand up to them, just because it doesn’t happen very often. The imperium’s bureaucracy is very small, as Fussy can do the work of many humans and do it faster, but I’m sure they are rather obsequious. I doubt her legates are. Forewarned by Old Dysart, Stephen does not put up with her shit, either.

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Annexation (4/4?)

Stepping up posting a bit as it will force me to finish this. There will be a Part Five, a conclusion. My notes from last night are awful, so I’ll flog them together later today.

In RealLife, I had to do preliminary tax work this morning. Ours are complicated so we’ve used a CPA for twenty years. Since the Fed’s Magic Money Machine can just go brrr, brrr, filing taxes is nothing more than a humiliation ritual the Cloud People use to show how much they hate us.

Below, Stephen meets Fussy for the first time and, I think, likes what he sees. He is a cautious and reserved man, which I think is why I had to write a part 5; nothing happens quickly. In fact, from my notes, nothing really happens.

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Annexation (3/4?)

Now we get a look at the other side of the hill. Fussy is obviously up to something and we’ll have to see just how diplomatic Johnston can be once he arrives. Telling that he goes to his boss’ father for advice rather than the current president of the GSS.

Updates may take a hit as there are unwelcome RealWorld matters I’ll need to see to. Even so, I’d like to think I’ll have this story complete within a week.

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