Category: creative writing

Libel and Slander

The mnemonic I developed for these is that “libel is literary and slander is spoken.” Neither of which has anything to do with this post.

Point One: the 650 raw minutes of the audio of “Friend and Ally” are complete. The first-pass rough editing is complete. Thanks to a friend’s gifted “how to use Audacity” course, it now is taking me 45 minutes to flog a chapter into shape for ACX rather than three hours. Better: I see how I can improve that for next time. The nagging issue is that I AM EFFING SICK TO DEATH OF HEARING MY OWN VOICE! I didn’t really hear it while acting (and audiobooks is voice-acting, not reading) but having to go through this twice…! Sick of it! And Wednesday is almost upon us!*

Point Two: I’d been sitting on the first three paragraphs of a micro-story for two months now. Again with Chief Daniel Hill, but this is at the other end of the telescope, when he first settled his people as the hundred million dead of the Breakup was happening around them. No such things as coincidences, a stranger wanders through their kononia.

*I shall be appearing as the featured guest on the Star Chamber on Wednesday, March 10th, at 2100 Eastern US time. It’s recorded, so don’t think you have to get up early or stay up late.

Below the fold: an unexpected visitor to the tribe of Sardis Lake.

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Nitty gritty, radio waves

Barring unforeseen circumstances, such as me being seized in the night and taken to a FEMA camp with other dissidents, I am scheduled for a podcast interview with The Star Chamber on Wednesday, March 10th, at 2100 US Eastern Time. Because of who I am and how I tend to say things no-one cares to hear, that is, the truth, I wrote an outline and sent it to the host, reducing the likelihood that either of us will have our doors kicked in by the FBI for this interview.

I said reducing. I’m not ruling it out.

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Assignments

Things I didn’t know two hours ago: what happened to St. Louis and how easy it is for these people to make work for me. You will see that, by the time you get to the end of the addition to this little story, below the fold, I now have the genesis of three more stories. Turn what I have written into a Prologue and each son becomes Parts One, Two, and Three of another book.

Just like that: another novel. What an odd hobby I have.

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“Baby, it’s cold outside”

And inside, too. Having worked HealthBenefitsJob this weekend, I was off today. My plan was to retire to the basement to record two if not three chapters of Part Two of “Friend & Ally.” It’s 15F outside; the vents are closed in the basement… and I turn off the furnace when recording, anyway. Hmmm. Catching a cold and/or freezing to death does not seem a good execution of said plan, so I shelved that. Maybe Thursday.

Needing to do something creative, I forced myself to start typing out the short story in the back of my head for a week: a generation after the end of “Goddess’ Crusade,” for some reason, Faustina gathers her adult male children together for a meeting. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but I think it has something to do with the succession to the imperium. Making some notes before typing, I now see that at forty-three years old, Faustina has six + one children, four of whom inherited her demi-human nature. I am just as curious as you are.

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American Imperium Trilogy complete!*

A week sooner than planned, for once, I am pleased to announce the release of all three books of the Crusades of Faustina Hartmann. It is available in both the virgin ebook format and chad paperbacks (Princess, Empress, Goddess). Thanks to everyone for your support over this past year as I got these stories written, edited, and covered.

*The ending of “Goddess’ Crusade” surprised all of us. There is another story there…

GC on the runway…

Didn’t plan to go dark again, but had many things happening at once. In meatspace, I was fighting some GI-tract infection while still going to DayJob, as the main pharmacy tech for oncology was out with a heart attack. As I’m one of the few trained for that, it meant me going to work, no matter what my condition. Ugh.

Better now. And, even better, I received the copyedit of “Goddess’ Crusade” back. Better still is I just moments ago implemented those changes into the MS. The cover art is complete, so I am hoping to upload all this tomorrow and request a proof copy. Then, I’ll be done with this trilogy. A trilogy whose epilogue lends itself to at least one more book… if not more. I’m such a terrible writer. Or, at least, person.

This puts me two weeks behind here I wanted to be recording audiobooks. That is now slated for next weekend. My current thought is to record the raw of the entire book, “Friend & Ally,” if my voice holds out, and then do the editing. We’ll see. In other news, I’m also re-covering “Crosses & Doublecrosses.” The current cover is… lacking. Cheerio!