Some caffeine and alcohol in the afternoon helped me to lay down the rest of their dinner. I’ve over 1k words beyond that, but it’s another day and back to political stuff with Teresa. I hope to wrap it up tomorrow and then wait and see what comes next. I think there will be one more installment with Mac, followed by the POP back to ‘present’ of Nichole with the Nation on the move…
Category: romance
001
At 19,074 words, the raw manuscript of Part 1/3 of Nichole5’s second book is complete. While trying to keep it light-hearted and romantic, I had no choice but to lay some groundwork for what’s coming: Nichole & John Brunelli personally reconning what’s going on across the Columbia River, to the far northeast of the City. Teresa both a passive informant as well as secretly excited at the possibility of succeeding her father in power*. And finally the simple girl, Mackenzie: who just wants to make beautiful art, about to become a double-agent.
Nearly 20k words, and not one battle! I must be thinking back to my roots as an author! Wonder what that bodes for Part 2/3? Will it open in the middle of combat, or will things continue to progress slow by slow? The world wonders. And for Nike and Zom’s? I’m not remotely close to looking past that curtain.
*I recalled the scene from Robert Graves “I, Claudius,” where, some days after being picked to be Emperor by the Praetorian Guard, Claudius meets with a select few of the Senate leadership:
A senator: “You are not fit for this job!”
Claudius: “I agree. I am old; some say I am without my wits. But I am alive while dozens of my family went to the grave with theirs fully intact! You say I have no experience… do you have more? I’ve been in the Imperial Household since my birth, watching how it works. Do you know more?”
Expect Teresa (via Nichole) to have a similar speech in Part 3/3… if she’s still alive. Also, I hope in this installment I’ve captured Nichole’s recognition of the moral grey zone she’s stepped out into, by asking what she does of her friend. I realized, just now, that she’s created a box of safety around her boyfriend. Good Lord, but that’s going to backfire.
Friend for dinner
Work sucked less; dog still not well. After work had to walk to my car in the rain. I’m writing books set in Portland, so I regarded it as theater training. Still maneuvering my way to the conclusion of Part 1 while at the same time laying the groundwork for Part 2
I want to show that Gil and Nichole love one another, but at the same time I want to show that they both know there’s something very odd about their relationship. In other words, it’s a pretty typical guy-gal thing.
Prednisone & Gabapentin
For the dog, not me. I’m for the cheap wine, with some occasional gin in the warmer months. See, for example, my recent post on Instagram (@machciv). The story below follows immediately on that from my last blog post; I’d seen all of it, but was just too tired. Bad news at work, bad news at home… it piles up. Instead, let’s have three friends drink tea and nibble cookies on a rainy, Portland, Sunday afternoon!
“Why isn’t the plot here, yet?!”
Because I needed to put the third and final piece (eavesdropping and Mackenzie) into place, first. Now the rest of Part One can begin to unfold. Things are going to be fine.
In Part One.
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!
Retro Follow-up
My four ‘Retro’ posts seemed to generate some interest and it made me recall a TV Tropes page that a fan, from southern England, made of my visual novel some time ago. He did yeoman’s work in covering all four stories and all possible endings!
Spoilers abound – especially with the hidden text – but I think it’s a wonderful review of my first foray into writing.
0 AND 1
A good two days: even with the icepick, by drinking iced tea all morning until around 1230, followed by a switch-over to wine, I can up with 1900 word like this. I’ve lots of careful groundwork I need to lay down before… well…
Make haste slowly.
Blazing
Busy with sorting cover designs for Friend & Ally. Of course, that’s no excuse for not writing. What is was my neck: in trying to stop a piece of paper from falling off a desk at work, I’ve done something horrible to my neck. I wake up feeling fine, but if I tilt my head forward – as in, reading a screen, repackaging meds, snapping together IVs, prepping things in the isolation hood – for more than twenty minutes, it’s as if there’s an ice pick in the upper left of my neck. I come home tanjed near shaking and in tears from the pain. It laughs at ibuprofen. Friday night I took a Flexeril and a bottle of wine and this AM was less bad, at least to the point I was able to start laying down the story of Nichole5 Part 2.
I’ll admit that it started where I expected but ended up where I did not. I’d seen the ‘catching fish’ part. Everything after that… news to me! But great exposition and exploration of Nichole’s character. I wonder what they’ll say to each other in the morning?
The Second Bridge, Coda, pt4
Question: is there anyone, besides me, stupid enough to think that I would wrap things up tonight? I really planned and wanted to. It’s all in my head! But it’s already 1.5L bottle of wine o’clock and tomorrow’s DayJob promises to be awful.
Part Five is it! I swear! Even if I have to wait three days and make it 10k words long!
machciv 