Tag: family

Deus Volt

Ever since I met her in “Worlds Without End,” I knew that Faustina, Gary Hartmann’s slightly younger sister, would have her own novel.

I just didn’t expect to have her showing me things so soon.

Like all of my stories, as I learned from Jerry Pournelle, this is starting in the middle:  set maybe five or eight years after WWE, Faustina has led her personal army from Knoxville over the mountains and down the river to take the important port city of Savannah.  At great cost to herself.

I confess that, as always, I’ve no idea at all where this is going and am interested as you are…

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“First Among Equals”

I went almost two weeks without writing more than a paragraph.  I needed at least one more short story for my January collection and thought to tell a story about Henge and her and Gary’s daughter, Aurelia.  One paragraph and some notes.

And nothing.

Admittedly things were hectic at DayJob and much time was spent formatting “Worlds Without End” into a format acceptable to Smashwords, but I would sit at my laptop and wait to see what they would show me… which was precisely nothing.

A week ago a fellow I work with asked how the writing was coming.  I replied the technical side was fine but I was currently stuck.  Still stuck a few days later, I recalled his question.  I based the coder Dmitri, Reina’s father, on him, I thought.  There are no such things as coincidences… he was meant to ask that question!  And that means…

I saw Reina standing in the snow.  Twelve hours later I heard her talking to a visitor.  I wrote this in four hours.  What these people do with me sometimes…

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Worlds Without End

Going into a lovely early Fall weekend with little to do?  Need something to while away time with the cool breeze and falling leaves?  If you have not yet, download and read “The Fourth Law” and “Echoes of Family Lost” FOR FREE (while you can!) then go on to read the latest addition to my future history of Machine Civilization just now released!  Cheers!

Worlds Without End 

 

WWE FOR REVIEW - STANDARD 8 SEPT VERS 3

Accelerationism

I have a small, local Author Fair coming up on 9 November.  What if, I wondered, I not only had “Worlds Without End” finished – in less than ten day from now – but what if I also had “Crosses & Doublecrosses,” the third novel I began but set aside over three years ago as 1) I was not old enough to write it, and 2) it is a god-awful story I hated living in, complete?  Is that possible?

I just completed the basic MS.  Grammarly is chewing through it in the the background while I write this.  I have reached out to my current cover designer to sound him on this; that will likely be the determining factor.

Still… I would be something:  a novel and novella, 100k words, all commercially out in less than six weeks.  Irrational deadline drive me; can I make this one?

Below the fold is the last thing I wrote for C&DC:  its Prologue.  There’s closure for you.

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Getting Graphic

With my copyeditor seeming to have some issues right now, I’m falling back on Grammarly and some proofreaders for the first edit of “Worlds Without End.”  We’ll see how that pans out once I’ve a physical proof copy in my hands.  Shame, really; Monica has been a source of strength to my works for four years now.

In the mean time, here’s the penultimate cover, from Jacoby Alley Designs.  Professional, nimble, responsive.  If any of my readers are self-publishing, please reach out to them for a talk and/or a quote.  I’ve much to do:  my deadline of 30 September is upon me.

 

WWE FOR REVIEW - STANDARD 8 SEPT VERS 3

Empire’s Agent – End

Finally!  And what a way to end!  This 21k “short story” will be the anchor of my collection of similar for my book in the early months of 2020.  Right now I think the shorts will be arranged chronologically, so this will be pretty much in the middle.  To-date this gives me ~31k words for that book; I’ll try to flesh one of them out a little more and am sure I’ll have one or two come to my mind in the next few months.

This was a lot of fun!  Unfortunately what comes next, besides the final edit of “Worlds Without End” is the last tweaks to the awful “Crosses & Doublecrosses.”  Yuck.

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Meet & Greet

Finally getting back into the hang of things.  Arpad meets Ai and Fausta FTF and then is about to have dinner – unwittingly – with a cousin of Lily’s.  I’ll try to get their little conversation out tonight or early tomorrow (I’m off DayJob tomorrow) as I really want to get to what will be one of the hearts of this short story:  their date in the park.  In don’t know exactly was happens but I have been offered a glimpse into the following Sunday morning…  so much to learn!

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Half-halt

It’s what you do in English Saddle riding to collect your horse.  That is what the last few days for me have been.  In the last ten days we took more supplies to Daughter #1 at college followed by my DayJob becoming evening job for the last week.  That means I wrote nothing for ten days.  In that time my copyeditor informed me she will have the MS for “Worlds Without End” back into my possession by 31 August.  I used that to goad my cover designer to get a-move on and wrap things up.

I was off yesterday, Friday, as well as this weekend.  I made some minor changes to WWE and wrote the back-cover blurb as well.  The stemma I revised and enlarged.  Finally to DO SOMETHING I returned to the Arpad/Lily love story.  It’s coming in fits and starts.  Or complete stops.  That’s where this installment ends:  at the start of a fight.  I know I don’t write those well and will need all my wits about me to flesh it out tomorrow.

It has been a long while since I touched on this short story.  The thread of it is here (https://machciv.com/category/empires-agent/).  The next installment is below the fold.

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Departing Friends

I am, by many measures, a failure as a human.  I have no empathy, no sympathy.  I am not emotionally expressive.  This past weekend we saw Daughter #1 formally off to college.  My wife was a wreck.  I gave my girl a hug and said “call or text if you’ve problems; later.”

It’s not that I don’t have and express emotions, it’s that I choose where to do it and even then can get blind-sided.  I thought the short story of “Old Friends” was going to be a harmless reunion.  Until I was more than halfway into the project did they show me that John Brunelli was unwell.  Nichole’s reaction to that was so severe that I was unable to write.  Yes, you read that correctly:  a character’s reaction to a revelation in my own head was so strong I couldn’t function properly.

I was finally able to sneak up on it in pieces.  I could split it, but why make y’all any more miserable than I was?  Here’s the last part of “Old Friends.”  I so need to write something light and fluffy next…

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