It’s 2334, local time, on 30 September 2016. Less than 26 minutes shy of my self-imposed publishing date.
To borrow from Arkada at Glass Reflections: “ladies, gentlemen, and others, let’s jam!”
Link to hardcopy once it’s ready. W00t for irrational deadlines!
Next week is busy: wife’s last in-patient chemo, girls busy with school and swimming, and, at the end of the week: Ohayocon! Since 2011 it’s been a great family outing for us: we stay in a hotel in downtown Columbus that’s attached to the Convention Center, get our cosplay on, and have fun!
This year…not so much. There’s an alpaca panel at 1400 on Friday that Daughter #1 wants to see, so that means I pull them both from school at lunch. Another three hours of an hundred-year old Prussian education system designed to produce docile technicians, or fun with the family? Tough call. Daughter #1 has at three cosplays she’s bringing. I wasn’t really planning on anything, but my wife suggested that since this year’s theme is ‘science,’ just put on a lab coat and go. Of course, that got me thinking… so I’ll add my white wig (last year I was Ginko from Mushishi) and perch my steampunk welder’s goggles atop it. Add a pocket-protector, and I’m good!
That’s Friday. Saturday AM I’ll release the kids and drive a few miles north to get the missus. Right now the plan is to take her back to the hotel room to rest and hang out – rather than driving 45 minutes back home. With her red/white cell count, there’s absolutely no way she can go to the con: a head cold would be enough to give her pneumonia and kill her. Too bad, really: hairless after the chemo, she’d make a fantastic One Punch Man!
After that, as I told a co-worker, I’m setting the hard end date for Crosses & Doublecrosses for Easter. If it’s not done by then, I abandon it. The first thing I’m going to do is write down all I’ve seen; there’s quite a bit of material, actually, probably around 18k words. Trying to fit them into a coherent story has been killing me. So, I’ll just worry about that later. My New Zealand illustrator has showed me some colored pages for Henge’s Big Day! They are wonderful! I encourage all of you to patronize her site and get some portraits of you, your kids, and your pets done!
Busy week ahead.
My girls had a swim meet in Mason, Ohio, this weekend, so it was something of a working vacation for me. Vacation in that it was the first time since January since I’d slept anywhere but in my own house. Working in that I tried to get some more story written down. And I do mean written: typing is a bit problematic when sitting on bleachers at a high-school pool. Perhaps I’ll make the NaNoWriMo cut off; perhaps not.
Up this AM at 0400 to get my wife to the airport. She’s off to Houston for tests and consults this week for her lymphoma. It will be a busy time for me, what with day job, girls’ club activities, and whatnot, until her return. Writing takes another hit….
I’m trying to get things sorted with a great illustrator in New Zealand for my next book: a little 20-page thing about Henge (pronounced “hen-geh”), the youngest of Machine Civilization.
In the mean time, I wrote a short about what happens there. It’s not much; the book will be better, but sometimes, you have to say something. As always, please forgive WordPress butchering my formatting below the fold.
Okay, maybe I do have one friend: my 3-AR Studios business partner. It’s just that we’d not talked in months. So, with me sans family, I invited him over to dinner a couple of weeks ago. Drinks, steaks, more drinks. Then talk.
He talked about this vertical, scrolling format for webcomics he’d run across. It got rid of the annoying page-turning, and also allows for a certain unique consistency and flow of story. We went on to talk about ideas for content… hmmm. What’s been on my mind recently?
Okay: self-aware machines. That’s a start, he said. Go further: turn it past eleven. More drinks. Okay, I replied: vampire androids. We talked more. The next day, I started writing.
Below the fold, in WordPress’s usual hackneyed format, is the prologue of what I’m tentatively calling “Poisoned Hearts.” If you like that, I’ve also added chapter one. I’ve written chapter two and have notes for three. That’s enough raw material for about three 30-‘page’ comics. My colleague still has his own projects, but is making sketches. Cat is cuter than I’d imagined her. Lots of work detailing Christopher’s eyes. Need to write more….
Although I really don’t much like his stuff, Hemingway was one hell of a writer. One thing of his that I do take to heart is his quip of “write drunk; edit sober.” I’ve got one visual and two traditional novels out of that dictum.
Which brings me to this: the very short story below the fold was made with just the opposite formula; I’ve been drinking coffee all night, and just switched to cheap wine around 0500 so I can pass out in bed and go to sleep around 0730. I’ll take a look at again when I wake up.
SPOILER WARNING! The event below the fold takes place about one year after those in “Echoes of Family Lost.” For anyone who’s read that, the “reveal” is not really a surprise, but if you like to make your own way through a story, then please shy away.
Usual apologies for how WP screws up .doc formatting.
I’m very pleased to announce the release of my second novel. “Echoes of Family Lost” is a sequel to my first book, “The Fourth Law,” and takes place in my future history of Machine Civilization. The story of Ai’s and Lily’s families – and how they are increasingly intertwined – continues.
Hardcopies are available here and the $0.99 Kindle version is here. Thanks to everyone for your on-going support! I hope to have a very short story from this series posted tomorrow as a way of saying thanks.
machciv 