Faustina gets out of the hospital at last. We see a little more of her odd cult as well as a demonstration as to why she’s so good at fostering it. She takes a ride with her sister-in-law. More politics next then – I hope – a flight with her brother back to Savannah. Busy, busy!
Category: writing
Negotiations start
Time for a little politics, unfortunately. I agree with Faustina: I want to see her back to her legions so I find out what the heck happens next, too. But, honestly, she cannot go back empty-handed. She has to have concrete information for the PLA general, Zhou. The first steps of that are settled here. I suspect we’ll see more when she meets privately with the First Councilman in about ten of their days.
I’m off DayJob tomorrow and hoping to get at least 5k words down… or more!
A Mother’s Calm
I’ve actually put down about 2.5k words tonight… on a DayJob night! But the two parts are very distinct from each other. This is Faustina with her mother and niece. Next comes formal politics, domestic and foreign. Sometimes small updates are best updates.
A Father’s Love
Faustina gets some laps in the pool then a bit of shock about what she is turning into in the city of Knoxville… essentially, her image is outstripping who she really is. The question shall be: does she try to catch up, or go another direction entirely?
Either way, her dad thinks this is all a crock and is worried sick about his little girl.
Rehab
After not formally writing for a week and half, I feel as if I should be entering rehab; I have (looks about) five pages of notes from downtime at DayJob and quiet times about my house but when I just didn’t the time to sit down in front of the laptop.
That came to an end today. Daughter #2 off on a cancer fun-raiser, wife doing something about the house somewhere… I’d no more excuses. I fired up the pellet stove in the basement and came down thirty minutes later to write. So far, it’s working. 3k words of Faustina’s recover in the Knoxville hospital flowed right out. There’s much there: her physical condition, the reaction of her family to her injuries, and her fervent desire to return to “her boys” as soon as she is able. It will be a balancing act for her, in, I think, three parts. Here’s part one.
C&DC on Kindle
The Kindle ebook version is now available. I hope to flog things together and get “Crosses and Doublecrosses” up on smashwords.com this weekend.
In the meantime, with about twenty minutes of downtime between making chemos, I saw why Thaad chose to interfere in human affairs, specifically when it came to the Chinese military dropping more rods onto Savannah. Made about a page of notes… perhaps I’ll try to write some tonight?
Savannah 3/3
Needs work. Couldn’t quite get into the proper groove of things this weekend: post Christmas and Daughter #1 back to college. It was nice to have her home for three weeks; of course she’ll be back in five days as she wanted to come with us to Ohayocon on the 10th-12th. That’s my weeb girl!
This is enough that when I rewrite it and edit it into a novel that it will work. As any regular reader knows, I keep things sparse and terse. It might be a little too terse here.
Savannah, 2/3
Some good news. Some very bad news. Faustina is learning to think under pressure.
Most of my fam is out of the house for one reason or another tomorrow. Barring any oddity I shall complete not only part three of three but also quite possibly bring Part One to a conclusion. What little I have seen of Part Two is… rather weird.
Savannah, 1/3
Hope everyone had the New Years Eve and Day they desired. I’ve spent most of the morning avoiding writing (two loads of dishes, repaired a space heater, collating a week’s worth of leftovers) and the afternoon sitting down and writing.
Below the fold are the first moves against the city of Savannah and the Peoples Liberation Army units that occupy it. There are several references to military history and we learn that like her Machine namesake, Faustina has what a normal person would consider to be a very odd sense of “fun.”
A personal look back
I am not normally a reflective or sentimental person but ARSH 2019 has been quite the year. Foes and Rivals went live 366 days ago, so I can call that 2019-ish. After losing over two months when my copyeditor of five years ghosted me, Worlds Without End came out in October. “Crosses and Doublecrosses” has been ready since just after Thanksgiving but the H1B’s at Kindle think the cover is flawed (it’s my cover! Publish the tanjed thing!). My short story collection is effective ready to go, only lacking a cover and copyediting, which I shall have completed in January.
In meatspace, my eldest daughter went off to college for Aminal Science/Pre-vet and is thriving to the point she’s spending part of May and June of 2020 at a college on Hokkaido. I changed employers for more pay and – more importantly – more time off to write.
Time which I have been using to write [working title] “Crusade”; 33.5k words since late October and the city of Savannah is only now about to be attacked. I suck at war stories, it seems. This shall end up either being a very large, 3-part novel, or I’ll break it into three distinct books. I’ll know when they show me the scenes.
Thanks to all who follow along. God willing, I’ve so many more stories to tell in the time I have left. Happy New Year!
machciv 