Having covered politics and sex it was time to turn my attention to the last of the “not to be discussed” triumvirate of religion. More specifically Christianity and ever more so, Roman Catholicism. Only two of the machines are believers and I’d guess about half, barely, of the human characters who get a speaking role in my twelve books are. I and my characters are never preachy but it is a very important matter for many of them.
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A whole thirty minutes! And this is just the barest overview! We begin with Lily & Callie, broaden to their parents and families, then off to the surviving city-states of the former US, and finally a quick look at the rest of humans on Earth.
Very ambitious, but also a good start. I could spend thirty minutes on each main character, so was pleased to keep things under control as well as I did. Machine or human, any story is about people. For reference, a stemma, or family tree, is just below.
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A riff on Lucretius. You’ll see why when Nichole 5 shows up.
This again slightly longer installment marks the end of Part 3 of the MS for “Empress’ Crusade.” I want to wrap the whole thing up in no more than 40-60 more pages. I’ve reams of notes and images in my head but, honestly, am not sure which way to jump right now. I know Faustina moves due east but not with how many of her four legions in Vicksburg. I see the huge old Army base of Fort Benning. I see what’s left of Atlanta and those in it a generation on. I also understand her operational desire to secure the rest of the Deep South and a land route to Savannah.
This weekend will be spent in note-taking and, very likely, a series of micro-stories to try to muddle my way through this. I don’t want to inflict that kind of “blue skying” on anyone, so it is likely that my updates will dwindle to nothing for June.
I am still looking forward to playing about with creating audiobooks over the summer. Once I have the rest of EC in the can, so to speak, I might just post my prototype voice efforts on you, my poor, unsuspecting readers… and listeners.
Below, Faustina once again reaches out to her extended family to make a point to President Dysart of the Gulf Shore States: the world is a much, much smaller place than he thought it was.
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.
I close things out at the Hartmann Family Dinner. Henge has a random act of kindness for her new family; Faustina talks war with her father; Gary and Henge make another go or two at a sibling for Aurelia. Wrapping up lose ends, really. After this, Faustina and her legions are on the march!
Battles are still very difficult for me. I do jaw-jaw better than war-war. This 12k word prologue should wrap up in the next installment as they fly home. Then we will learn how Fussy scaled one cohort up to two legions and led her first crusade, to Savannah.
I am as curious as you are!
Not so much for me, other than I’ve made much progress these two days… even though I am only just now getting to the leading edge of my notes I made at the local Book Fair fail of a week ago. Make haste slowly. No, the good news is below the fold.
For those who’ve not been following along, this is a continuation of yesterday’s post and the latest story of Faustina’s recollections about building her private army. Many things going on… when this becomes a novel it will likely take two chapters to unpack.
DayJob is nightmarish: all the of the IV rooms are, politely, “in flux.” “We’re all screwed” comes closer but we are all trying to KBO.
I was visited with Faustina’s next adventure last night. What I found entertaining was that when I sat down in front of the computer, I saw this, first. More Faustina and her legions next time. I promise!
I’m enjoying how this is turning out so far. I think I’ll have Faustina in hospital recollect everything right up until the rod dropped and she was badly injured. Things will all be real-time after that. And I have a suspicion where – one of the world’s functioning fusion reactors – she and this story might be headed. Two parts? Three? We shall see; I always knew she would get her own novel!
