Category: death

Prophet (pt.6)

Snowing out there like dogs and cats in a come-from-behind home run. In my unfortunately increasingly normal “wake up at 0500” moment, I recalled something about “New Russia” I tried to forget: mysticism. I do not play that game well. I’ll try to get past that scene and have Russians start shooting Canucks.

Musician Pedro (modeled on Rudy Sarzo, if you can believe that), from “The Fourth Law,” finally owns up what little he knows but what a lot he suspects about Kalí. From “Crosses & Doublecroasses,” the surname Barrett leaves most Texans speechless as they do not want to talk about it. She comes back from… hell, I’ve no idea, for some pillow talk with her husband. And yes, for you pedants, they get married before God tomorrow.

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Still no Title

There are going to be A LOT of people packed into this story. I’m off DayJob tomorrow but my priority shall be getting the “Regent” MS to my copyeditor and a series of descriptions of what I think might work on a cover to my designer. Once all that is finished, I’ll turn back to what’s happening with this poor kid.

The sequences are shorter as this is supposed to be a short story, right?

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New Short Story in the works

With “Regent” shortly off to my copyeditor and cover designer, I have two more projects. First, the completion of “New Russia,” what I abandoned about 13k words in back in spring. Second it to put together at least two more short stories for a second collection. To the latter end… Monday at 0630, letting the dogs out, I saw about the first half of what’s below. The second half came after six hours of nothing in my head. And, per usual, I’m about 500 words ahead as I don’t know how the politics of this will shake out.

So here we have a sick little boy. The trick for me, the writer, is that there are three people in this story, the Doctors Hartmann, and Dorina of tribe Tohsaka, who are vastly smarter than I am. It is tricky to write when you have people like that looking over your shoulder. And I don’t even have a working title yet.

And with open tabs about Batten Disease and the EAST reactor in China, my Feeb file likely was just reactivated

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Colour Me Surpised

Even though presented through dialog, this is still something of a cheap way of data-dumping onto the reader what’s probably ahead for what will be part three of the novel. All we know is the meeting in Tokyo and Aurie’s summon south. Her army? Colour? Jimmy? (remember him?) Long Island pirates? There are many things in flux here.

I suspect the next couple of installments will be General Hartmann dealing with them quickly. I know she’ll want her friend to go home and tell the Governing Council all she’s seen, to sway them more to the imperium’s side. One of the four legates will have be acting general but I still bet the army pulls way back to not look threatening in this new political situation. Much to think about.

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Cadets, 4/4

A Bolshevik I work with at DayJob – so long as we stay off politics we get along fine – is cruising along through “Crosses & Doublecrosses,” calling it “a page-turner.” We had a few minutes before the IV batch ran and I sat down and told him that from my, author’s standpoint, C&DC was harder to write than my romance/horror, “Cursed Hearts.” As I put it, sure: a psychic vampire sucking the life out of some guy until there’s nothing left but flakes of skin and bone powder is awful. But the worse depravities humans accomplish are done in meeting rooms. As said commie, he got that.

In that vein, we have Empress Faustina calming telling two young members of her family about her plan for the next twelve hours. A plan with a six-figure death toll at the end of it.

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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!

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“Hey, y’all! Watch this!”

That is very typical statement in the US South and parts of the Midwest, followed almost immediately by a call for an Ambulance or a Coroner. It’s usually uttered by males but the worse-than-cancer that is Feminism has made many women just as stupid. Think of it as evolution in action.

In my case, as I mentioned in my last post, I thought I knew what theme I might use for part two of book three of my “American Imperium” trilogy: the Pius XIII quote: “absence is presence.” That was followed by several days of DayJob and being too tired to write, then five days of writing no more than three paragraphs. Total.

On Day Five I realized my mistake. The story in general and Faustina in particular, did not want things to unfold that way and refused to show me anything. I backtracked. Talked to friends and acquaintances about my trainwreck and finally got back to work this morning. The first two chapters of Part Two (and I now wonder… a part three?) are on Faustina’s legates and the physical aftermath of the Battle of Opelika, but the next has my main character back in the limelight: did Reina really rip her soul out of her? How did she subdue or at least disconnect Alexandra Hood? Is she alive or dead? Little Fussy has become Schrodinger’s Cat and I have no choice but to open the box.

“How do you hurt a man with nothing? Give him back something broken.”

Part One of Goddess’ Crusade MS is complete. A hectic excerpt below. Part two is one chapter complete and another started. I’m… thinking about things. For 2.5 books of this soon to be published work, the camera has been fixed on Faustina. Sure, that includes interaction with her army, family, adversaries, and brief lover, but still her.

I’m not sure what to think of this idea, but as Pope Pius XIII said: “absence is presence.” That, coupled with the title of this post, is how I am carefully approaching Part Two. So carefully that I think there might be a Part Three and that “GC” will NOT be ready by 31 December 2020. *sigh*

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Fighting it out

Work on “Goddess Crusade” is coming along very well. Over the three-day holiday in the US I was able to average 2500 per day. One issue was the little engagement below the fold. I still don’t do combat scenes very well and wanted to try something small before getting into a huge battle in another hundred pages.

I’m actually about 40 pages past where this happens but realized I had not tossed anything out in a while. Bad me. As I’ve hit another temporary stopping point, I thought taking a break on WordPress was in order. I’ll drink a little more and see what trouble I can get Faustina in later this afternoon. Cheers!

PS WP is using a new editor and I have not taken the time to fully understand it. Apologies if this post is chewed.

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