Category: creative writing

“The Fallen” 3/6

Bigger update with someone new to this story but introduced a few other places, especially in the epilogue of the 5-star reviewed “Ice Inundation Intelligence.”

“The Fallen” is gaining its own momentum. Part One was 3800 words; Part Two, 6400. To-date, Part Three is 6800 and not about to end for at least another 2500-5000. Maybe Part Four will just be, “rocks fall; everyone dies.”

*sigh* We all know that won’t be the case. I’ll keep on keeping on. I know I’m working toward the image of the girl in the swamp. It’s just a matter of getting there.

With all of these Russian demands, I realized I’d better put the map back up.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/6″ →

“The Fallen” 3/4

A rare Saturday update. I’ll be busy Sunday through Tuesday morning, so I thought to get something out now.

We start in on international politics, with the Japanese consul in Neo-Yokohama getting the first word in. For a diplomat, I’d say he gets too many words in, so I think the slight to Anton is deliberate. Toward the end of this segment, he lays out his travel plans for some shuttle diplomacy.

Starting to wonder if I should pin that map of Mars to the top of this blog as a reference.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/4″ →

“The Fallen” 3/3

At last we get Anton Sr into the frame. He’s twenty-nine, I think, at this point. A high-caste Mexican married to a demi-human, mixed race imperial princess. With an ambassadorship. And, as we discover in this shorter segment, still, after five years, getting used to married life.

Hell, at five years my wife and I nearly got divorced. It was my fault. A twice-divorced colleague sat me down and explained: “Clayton. You’re a man and an engineer. If someone tells you a problem, you immediately want to fix it. Women are NOT like that. They talk to talk. Just pretend you’re listening and all will be well.”

And here we are, thirty-one years later. Thanks, Bill!

Section 4 will start us down the political spillway: Japs, Rus, imperials. And a very odd occurrence when they fly over the Arabia Marshes. I wonder if the plot might be showing up?

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/3″ →

“The Fallen” 3/2

As y’all have heard me say, part three is a bit harder for me. That being so, I’m planning on every-other-day updates rather than daily. I’m having to pay a lot of attention to details I’d otherwise gloss over, and it takes time.

What a lovely family. I’m trying my best to not ruin it.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/2″ →

“The Fallen” 3/1

As I mentioned in the last installment, this one is a bit harder as there is no main character, per se. That means I cannot use first-person thought without headhopping, a bad early habit of mine from some years ago.

I’m realizing now that what that does do is make me describe things more. That’s a net positive as this is a new world in the process of terraforming. So I suppose part three was meant to be this way.

We step ahead about ten years here. Saras is married, one son, a daughter pending. Back on Mars, which we saw she considers her home, she and her little boy anxiously wait for his father, her husband, to get back from Earth.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 3/1″ →

“The Fallen” 2/10

And this is the end of part two. It would made for a fantastic scene in a movie, which was how it was shown to me.

Saras’ conflicted feelings to Les are obvious, as a girl, and complex, as they are both demis. Her question and his answer toward the conclusion put an end to whatever emotions she might have been feeling about him, besides love and respect for a senior member of the family. And, this is two Tolkien references in two segments, for those of you keeping track.

I’m getting into part three…and it’s a tangle. Unlike part one which had Eloise with “first-person thoughts,” and part two with Saras doing the same, there is no single of the three I’ve met so far who will have that. So, instead of people thinking and talking to move the story along, it’s third-person me typing all this out. It is NOT my style and I find it limiting and clunky. I’ve only about 1000 words of it so far, and one of those three characters hasn’t even wandered onstage yet, so I’m a little unclear as to how long part three will be. I do, at least, see how it keeps the overall arc toward that feral demi-girl whose image started all this foolishness.

Have a good weekend. New material on Monday. Deus vult.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/10″ →

“The Fallen” 2/7

Dinner. I’m good with dinners. Surprised that Les ran his mouth there a little bit; as I mentioned yesterday, having those two alone for weeks and months might be changing how they act around others.

I’m thinking of wrapping up Part 2 by Friday, and then taking another multi-year step. We’ll have to see.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/7″ →

“The Fallen” 2/6

Well! Two reveals. One, we get back to what Fussy and Ed found in “Ice Inundation Intelligence,” and two, that Les and Min do, in fact, love one another. I’m guessing they would use the more precise term of agape. I do not even know if Min’s Model 12 body is kitted out for sexual intercourse. Guess we’ll have to find out. In a non-prurient way, of course.

Since they brought up the Device, I wonder how, if at all, it plays into the image of that feral girl by a stream? Many, many futures here and I am increasingly confused. Writing, in a sense, is like Schrodinger’s Cat: by typing the words, you collapse the wave equation from all the myriad ways, to one.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/6″ →

“The Fallen” 2/5

A bit of a longer segment, going into the weekend. Minerva, as I mentioned in the last segment, started off as a sliver of Reina. Left to her own computational devices, a new personality formed. That personality, like how a baby bird imprints onto its parents, is completely fixated by Laszlo Hartmann. Back when the Minerva-consciousness was still barely formed and she was still Reina, she watched Les and his boyfriend, Nikita, behave in a sexually deviant fashion. As a very young new soul, she made several mistakes based upon that observation when it came to expressing her deep feelings for her captain.

Now, five years later, she seems much more comfortable in her role as helpmate and second-in-command of INS Lionheart as it gads about the outer solar system. As I do not think she has ever been around human children before, her quick response, below, was a surprise to me.

I wonder what Saras and Min will talk about? In wifi, androids can speak mind-to-mind just as demis do, but I don’t think Min would without “copying” everything to Les. We shall see.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/5″ →

“The Fallen” 2/4

As this is still primarily a writing experiment, I am playing fast and lose with time; thus the “Two weeks later…” That’s sloppy writing but rough drafts are about ideas, not grammar.

From Part Three of “Obligations of Rank” and the short story “Ceres” in “Imperial Entanglements,” we meet Laszlo Hartmann once again. This is about five years after “Ceres,” I think, so there are changes and adjustments to his life. We’ll get to know Minerva a bit more, tomorrow.

Enjoy my content? Buy me a beer!

Continue reading ““The Fallen” 2/4″ →