Category: new book

Filling In

God was kind enough to give me two pieces of the puzzle to part 1 of my next book.  Just now I saw the third piece*… right when I have to make dinner** for the family… arrgh!

*Nichole, as hybrid student/teacher in V. Bishop’s coding class, has a discussion after class with Vicki about improvements to the gain of the remote sensors used by the agriculturalists up the Columbia.  If Nichole backtracks on Mackenzie, that yields her:

1. A personal agent in the dictator’s household;

2. An agent with access to financial records;

3. A means of audio eavesdropping.

YES!

**Pork medallions in mustard-cream sauce, flambed with apple brandy.

F&A Cover

Formerly an exclusive on Gab.ai, where you can speak freely, below the fold is the cover of the my next novel.  Monica is wrapping up her copyediting, so I hope to have a proof copy in my hands in no more than a week.  A week beyond that should see it released to the wild.  So honestly, call it two to three.

I really need to get back to writing Part Two!

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Friends and Allies

Chose the winning design for the cover of my next novel:  The Saga of Nichole 5:  Part 1 – Friend & Ally.  It still needs a little tweaking, so I shan’t roll it out quite yet.

In other news, I’m also getting back into the habit of writing.  I have to:  if I am about to publish a book called ‘Part 1’ I tanjed well better have a ‘Part 2’ lined up on deck and ready for launch.  Of course, I don’t.  Quite.

I hand-wrote about two pages of notes yesterday.  That’s something for a pantser such as myself.  Still, with all the RealWorld things I had to do about the house today, at least I was able to lay down a few words for Act I.

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Nichole5: Part 2 Prologue

I love prologues that are also spoilers.  It then is incumbent upon the writer to make the reader forget it until the last few pages.  Every new novel of mine must have a personal challenge I’ve never tried before, and this is it.

I’m continuing to get good prototypes in via 99designs.com for the cover of ‘Friend and Ally,’ the first book about Nichole.  Entries will be open until Friday.  I’ll also have to think of a sub-title for this second book.  Reflecting the first, it’ll be “something and something,” but I’ve no idea.  I’ve time enough; and worlds.

Below the fold is how the story ends.  As David Byrne once asked, “Well?  How did I get here?!”

Continue reading “Nichole5: Part 2 Prologue” →

Clue-by-fore

Walking away from the keyboard yesterday – but never from all those in mind – at dinner I chuckled to my wife, “…nothing I’m writing right now!  Guess I could just throw…”

She looked up as I trailed off.  Now well knowing that far-off look I get when imagining, she kept her peace.  I came back to myself (someday, I think, I shan’t) and looked up.

“A novel on the cheap:  I take the 36k words/9 stories I wrote during Lent, toss in the 12k from Empire’s Agent, come up with one more, and call it an anthology of short stories of Machine Civilization.” As this was business and not creation, she looked to Daughter #1 and asked about her homework.

I thought about it more today.  Initially, I despaired:  the 2nd longest story, Abandoned Factory, is set in a borrowed world, that of Yoshitoshi ABe’s Haibane Renmei.  Japanese copyrights never expire!  I’d have to toss that one out!  Later, tired in the afternoon, I recalled Comiket and the Japanese doujinshi industry:  light novels, manga, anime, a goodly portion of which are entirely based on other’s works.  And sold commercially…

I’ve still some legal matters to follow on, but “Machine Civilization Dreams,” a compendium of 11-12 short stories covering nearly twenty years in that world, is a distinct possibility!

 

Books Spring 2018

 

Downs & Ups

My free webnovel of “Defiant” is now no longer available.  In a few months it shall return as a proper, edited novel with a proper cover.  On the drive home today – from a long, awful, day at work – I’ve glimpsed a title.  Perhaps I’ll create a poll on Gab.ai to see which way the winds are blowing?

Anyway, the tentative title for the webnovel formerly known as Defiant is now:

“The Chronicles of Nichole5:

Part 1 – Friend and Ally”

If there’s a part one, that forces me to write a part two!  At the bottom of the cover I’ll add “A Novel of Machine Civilization” to let the unsure know it’s a part of my future history.

Didn’t find anything else wrong with the re-edit of The Fourth Law.  I need to add two pages, at my wife’s very good suggestion, and get that off to Createspace.  But… tomorrow.  Too tired now and I don’t want to bugger up my pdf files.

Yes, yes:  Lily and Arpad’s lunch!  I know!

 

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Tears, sweat, blood

To cite Arkada of Glass Reflections:  ladies, gentlemen, and others, I present to you the final installment of Act 2.5 of “Defiant.”  Yes, you read that right:  the writing component is complete.  Editing and ret-conning the four parts of this 18-month, 85.5k writing exercise into a proper novel will begin.

And therein lies your chance, you followers of this blog and those that have wandered in via my sole social media presence on Gab.ai:  if you so desire, you can d/l and read the entire story between now and Saturday, for free.  It’s very, very rough, but you’ll get what you pay for. Come Saturday, whenever I wake up, I’ll be pulling the entire ‘free webnovel’ down as I begin to turn it into a commercial novel.  As always, I’ll do the first-pass editing myself.  Second and copyediting – and a cover – are as yet an unknown; after the layabout wife and the Dog With the Golden Nose, it’s all ramen and Taco Bell salsa packets here.  My sole, possible, hard-deadline, is January 26th, when I might have another Creative Writing panel at Ohayocon.  If I do, I’d like to say, “since my last panel, I’ve published two books… what did you do?”  Keeps the snarkers from snarking.

Anyway, there’s just over thirty five hundred fricking words below the fold!  Open a bottle of wine or make a pot of coffee, the one right next to that bottle of bourbon, sit back, and, please, see what I’ve seen… and have fun!

Continue reading “Tears, sweat, blood” →