This took a turn for the somber I didn’t anticipate. Fallout from RealLife, I guess. There was more Nichole was going to say, but it was obvious I had to let Teresa have her say.
What a day.
Tag: friendship
Walkies
It always make my dogs feel better. Me, too.
A long, dry spell of not-writing. Day Job has blown and several family issues. Getting back on track. This was a productive weekend, even if I’m another US$3000 in the hole.
“Defiant” – VERY likely under another name, my free webnovel, shall be published by Christmas. Read about how I’m completing it, below the fold.
Pirate Twins 13: The Spy Who Loves Me
This was, originally, two posts: I really wanted to get up and ahead one in case an outbreak of RealLife (TM) prevented me from finishing this no later than Friday.
But, it just didn’t work. It was awful. So I moved a couple of things and smoothed the transition (but I bet y’all can still see where it is) and am posting it. Your win, my loss. Sorta.
Pirate Twins, 8
Learning to stop myself when I know the next dialog sequence between the characters. That allows me 24 hours to play with the beginning of the next section. Thus: I saw the first ten lines between Logres and Libby yesterday. I know what they talk about when the cross the Channel tonight. As to what happens next, I’ll know before I sit back down to write in 23 hours.
Sneaky, old, clever, and lazy works for me.
Reversion to the Median
Back to normal, really. After nearly a 4-week hiatus getting “Cursed Hearts” released into the wild and dealing with some RealLife issues, things will be getting back on track here.
Yesterday was Matsuricon in Columbus, Ohio, the second biggest animecon in this area. Unlike making it a long family weekend as we do for Ohayocon, we just drop by on Saturday. Got there around 1030; was surprisingly empty, so Registration was a breeze. Suddenly filled up around 1200. Was everyone hungover and sleeping in?
Caught a panel about buying odd stuff from Japan, the creator of the Monogatari series, and a short performance by Kazha (they were okay). Also hit the Dealers Room and got some Angel Beats artbooks and a Saber Lily figurine for my wife.
Later, was chilling at the bar in the Hiatt. After determining that the kid next to me was 1, a girl and not a trap, and 2, legal, I started a chatting her up. A 20-something year old pastry chef, she was also part Hungarian, which I IMMEDIATELY brought up when my wife appeared, before she yelled “Lolicon!” and clouted me. We secured a table just as Friend Will made his appearance. Sometime during the next five Martinis I know my daughters dropped by, but reality was rather ephemeral at this point.
Even so, and even being a Race Realist, there was a moment when I looked about the table and thought, counterclockwise: me (pasty old white guy), 1/8 Jewess (half my age), Black guy (half my age), two Chinese girls, and my Central Asian wife, all there to celebrate and have a good time over Japanese comics and animation. What an amazing and too-short moment of Western Civilization!
Pirate Twins, 2
RealLife(TM) work followed me home, not much, but I was off the clock, which sucked. I’m trying to make this a 4-5,000 word story complete by the time my CH proof copy gets here (irrational deadlines!) so that’s 1k words each night. That’s about what’s below the fold. Makes sense: my stories are characters and their interactions; this whole entry is Logres on his own, so, honestly, it’s a little boring. I had to get him halfway across Europe; now that that’s done, I hope he and Europa can show me what comes tomorrow!
Pirate Twins, 1
All right: I’ve an idea for a short story. I’m breaking it into parts, three, probably, that I can write over the next few days. Reilly’s out, but I still wanted something nostalgic, but, as I said in the last post, inside my future history. So, let’s rock.
Church mice
Coming to around 1000 at my day-job, I had a moment of clarity: for the last seven months, all my waking moments had been filled with Chris, Cat, and Maya somewhere in my mind.
For the past 36 hours: all quiet.
The mental moment was this: I was in a darkened – but not dark – older church, alone. A place that was just recently host to a hundred, and soon will be again, but now preternatuary still.
At the end of T4L, I’d already seen the sequel. The close of EFL was a ‘LOL’ moment, as kids would type.
Alone, looking at three graves of those that have been, not a part of me, but me… well… it’s very quiet, now.
Don’t like it.
And… that’s a MRAP!
Sorry: bad pun about how Chris, Cat, and Anton make their final stage north into the ‘no-go’ zone between San Diego and the LA basin.
From having nothing just over a week ago, I’m pleased with the 14k raw material words for how Chris and Cat fell in love with one another. I was also able to get a couple of more plates up and spinning for Maya to cast down in the next act. There was even a little Easter Egg from an unexpected guest appearance!
Below the fold is a some verbal sparring with Chris and Anton; Cat makes a brief appearance in a towel. After posting this, I’m making coffee – yes, with some bourbon – and will get Maya on her way out of the Vancouver BC Airport. She’s been cooped up there for three days (I think), waiting for one of the rare flights south. Not sure if she killed anyone… maybe. Through her eyes we might see the burnt-out, dead city of Seattle as they fly over. A few hours after that, Maya will be standing outside the San Diego Airport, just miles from her brother.
I cannot wait to see this!
Xenophon’s brother
Just over another 10k words this weekend! As I said to a friend of mine, I feel like a wrung-out dish rag. But, once I’d the key – the sight – from late Friday, it was so easy! Part of my last post was just that: Chris and Cat closing the gap between them. What I wrote since then was the 3+1 times they made love (slightly different than having sex), although I only covered #1 and #+1 in detail. That, plus another one of Chris’ recall-dreams of his time at Neuroi Corporation, this time, talking with his kid sister, Maya, made for a fantastic weekend!
Anton is sleeping with Chris & Cat’s next door neighbor; that’s complicated! And he’ll be giving them a tour of the northern ‘no-go’ zones around Camp Pendleton. The civilians of San Diego think the Mexican Army killed about 100k coming south from the 19MM in the LA Basin. Truth is hard, sometimes.
After what he sees, it finally occurs to Chris to reach out to experts beyond him: even machines suffer from the “if I’m good at this, I’m good at everything!” mental illness. The moment he does, he’s going to realize just what he’s overlooked, and how close he and his beloved are to an horrible, violent death.
This is SO COOL!
PS It was pointed out to me by someone in RealLife that my ‘below the folds’ are all banal (my word, not theirs), not ‘the good stuff!’ Well, duh! I welcome everyone into the world I’m making, but this is work, and I want to be paid for it. ‘Defiant’ was, and is, for free. Intellectual property is worth at least, if not more, than physical property. Example: a water pump is worth money; learning how to make a water pump, one or two orders of magnitude more. To continue the analogy, my snippets, in and of themselves, are slightly entertaining. I hope, once complete and edited, y’all think that they plus the other 45k words are worth US$7.
Thank you so much for reading!
machciv 