Category: creative writing

A Haunting Past

Of the two most famous Inklings, it was said that Lewis would sketch a scene by saying “The children stood in the forest. A chill wind blew.” Tolkien, on the other hand, would spend the next twenty pages not only telling you the history of the forest, but then go on to describe each and every leaf.

An exaggeration, but to make a point. My writing style can, charitably, be called more Lewisian; not so charitably, “the son-of-bitch-writer never explains anything!” Guilty as charged. I have a story to tell and my characters would be rather miffed at me if I take time to describe the leaves on the trees.

A positive of that, though, is in the million of tiny cracks and folds of my novels, there lurk hundreds of more stories. Back in January, I realized that over the course of five years being in Machine Civilization, I was able to pull together a short story collection. Below the fold is another example. Based upon “real life” – whatever that means – events, I was able to peek in on an interaction between Faustina and a civilian in a far flung corner of her imperium. This takes place about halfway through “Empress Crusade;” it is not in the book, but it is canon. Fodder for my next collection!

Continue reading “A Haunting Past” →

Winter quarters

Where an army or units of it would go once campaigning season was over. Often for the purpose of making sure a subdued people stayed subdued. Faustina needs to make a tour of her dispositions before riding back to Knoxville to play politics* and I realized I was unsure where her legions and auxiliary units are. So… another map! Cannot talk history without a map and that includes future history!

*Besides general opposition to what she has done, there is specific opposition to her recruiting Legion Six.

Deep history

I call Machine Civilization a future history for a reason. All parts of every story connect in hundreds of ways, some I do not see, to every other story. I first met Karl in The Fourth Law; one of the orphans seen to by Lily Barrett. A tendency toward fat but also one of her karate students. He makes another appearance in “Empire’s Agent,” the long short story which lends its name to the book’s title. There, he meets Arpad Rigó from the newly remade Habsburg Empire. “I have to get this boy into the army!” Rigó thought. In trying to make an end of Goddess’ Crusade, I find, years later, he did.

Continue reading “Deep history” →

Princess’ Crusade… released!

Very pleased to announce the release of the paperback and ebook version of the first of the American Imperium trilogy, Princess’ Crusade! Book two is already copyedited and only needs a front cover – under development – before it is released, as well. For those of you who have been following along, the third manuscript is nearly complete and hopefully no more than six weeks out. Cheers!

Making an end

Didn’t mean to go dark again. “Princess’ Crusade” is, God willing, about 48 hours from release. The front cover of “Empress’ Crusade” is being hammered out. I am 9000 words further on in the MS of “Goddess’ Crusade” from my last post. One major change: Holo just never sounded right; Faustina’s copy – her very active, independent copy – is renamed Helena.

And the repercussions of that new version of herself begin to manifest in Faustina Hartmann almost immediately. I am getting a little concerned about what comes next.

Continue reading “Making an end” →

A MachCiv Wiki

An old friend suggested that this morning. I’d been going on about Faustina’s doings as I am trying to complete the MS for “Goddess’ Crusade,” and, confused, he said: why not make a wiki for your entire future history?

As he has a history of most always being correct, I pushed that to the back of my mind and kept on writing. About two hours ago I hit another stopping point (General Hartmann threatened the remaining population of Atlanta with death or evacuation; ethnic cleansing, either way) and I was not sure what comes next.

Pulling out a copy of the partial stemma of my works, see below, I guess it could serve as a basis of a wiki, for many of the major players. I will also have to describe the three tribes of AIs as well as the three (now two) corporations in Japan who took differing approaches to machine thought (Tohsaka, Somi, Neuroi). Then there are all the places where the stories take place, up to and including Mars. Dang: that means I’ll have to describe the constructs of tribes Tohsaka (the Path and platform, rotating difference engines, archery range, airstrip, Henge’s beach…) and Mendrovovitch (the ruined city, snowy steppe, Kuban’s restaurant…).

This is going to be quite an undertaking but I see now that it will allow me to keep a hand in writing during winter 2021 when I am focused on recording and editing audiobooks of my works. Yet another genius idea from the creative mind of Will Deonne!

Life imitating my art, etc.

Another news story referencing something I have already covered. Always makes me smile.

From “Worlds Without End“:

“When,” he asked, “are we arriving at our destination?  The South China Sea was mentioned.”

“Allowing for positive and negative acceleration for my passengers, a tiny bit under two hours.”

“That’s something around fifteen thousand miles in two hours, Mister Rigó,” Gary observed with his traditional deadpan.  “That is remarkable.”

“The raw idea for reactionless thrusters was developed in America just before the Breakup, nearly fifteen years ago,” Rigó said, watching closely how the boy raised Tracy to a sitting position against the wall and systematically checking that she was well.  He was convinced that for less than a second her eyes tracked to him before returning to her blank stare.

“That research was picked up by both China and Japan, and, from what I learned in Vienna, very closely held!” He laughed a little.  “There is a new space race on, and we whites are kept out of it!”

Six Years

Sitting in my finished walkout basement on 3 November 2014, I received a text message from a friend: “Are you doing anything for NaNoWriMo?”

Unsure if he had mis-typed or was having a stroke, I asked for clarification. “National Novel Writing Month,” he typed. I had never heard of it, so I looked into it: the challenge to write a 50k word novel in the month of November. Hmm. I’ve always had a weakness for irrational deadlines…

Twenty-three days later, I had an awful manuscript of about 52k words. Awful. But still, I had seen something while creating it. I caught a glimpse of entire world filled with interesting people. I wanted to know more. So I kept typing. And typing. To-date I’ve been blessed to write down seven novels, one novella, one short story collection, and one children’s early reader. And my American Imperium Trilogy will be released in just a few weeks, followed by audiobooks in the early months of 2021.

What an amazing half-dozen years I have had. And thank all of you for reading along. Cheers!

Two-in-one

In which I sneak in two references to Herbert’s Dune in less than 2k words. After showing up at Owens CP, there’s a chapter where Gen’l Hartmann makes her way – with the proper escort – onto Fort Benning to seize her so-called sister, demi-human Alexandra Hood. It’s technical and time consuming and was a pain to write, literally, with my diseased eyelids. Below the fold is an interesting exchange as all of us, including me, are older as to the copy Reina made of Faustina.

PS Hands and eyes are slowly less bad. Had an IM shot of Kenalog-60 into my butt and am applying hydrocortisone cream to all my leprose bits.

PPS Not politics but common sense: for any of my readers in the US, make sure you have full fuel tanks in your vehicles and seven days of food in your home in case of “supply chain disruptions” following the election. This is not the 21st century I was expecting.

Continue reading “Two-in-one” →

Progress on two fronts

Finally got off my ass (arse for those of you in the Commonwealth) and signed a contract with Labelschmeide for all three cover of the American Imperium trilogy. She has done fantastic work for me before and I highly recommend her.

The mixed news is that the first, “Princess’ Crusade,” will not be out on Halloween. Sometimes, irrational deadlines are just that: irrational. I’ve the copyedited version of it and book two (with thanks to SZ Services), but as I just said, the cover is still under development. And, I’ll need to add an extended stemma of Faustina’s family as well as non-copyrighted maps to aid in understanding her campaign against Savannah. A delay, but not a long delay.

I also had an idea last week, after being at a standstill for five days, as I mentioned. That idea blossomed into the two chapters I wrote over the weekend; having two main characters now is a great amount of work for me to keep track of things. Nonetheless, the Battle of Opelika is nearly over. With a chapter to mop up, it will take 1-2 chapters to evacuate the feral population of Atlanta. Or kill them.

Below the fold is General Hartmann getting back into the fight after nearly dying from the 105mm artillery.

Continue reading “Progress on two fronts” →