Tag: friendship

Berserker, (pt2)

I admit I do not write personal fight scenes well. I can see them in my head but run, jump, jap, parry, gouge… I don’t know what to type in or leave out. Tactical or strategic battles? Read my Crusade Trilogy; I do those well, even if they take days to weeks or research to get correct. Six years ago, when Daughter #2 was still at home, I’d borrow her for her Shorin-Ryu karate training to understand some of the motions of hand-to-hand contact (“If you knock Dad out, no dinner!”).

So, we get what’s below. I do not think I botch it too bad. There are two points much more important than the action: one, Aurie knows she’s no superhero; she’s a little girl. Two, I want her and the readers to become aware of her rising bloodlust. That, to my mind, is something insanely dangerous for a demi-human to have.

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Berserker (pt1)

I need at least one or two short stories to fill out a second collection for publication. In “Regent,” which had the working title of “Colour” as I explored it here on my blog, there was a moment when demi-human princess Aurelia Hartmann killed twenty-seven men, pirates. She started with her rifle, then pistol, then knife, then teeth and hands. She seemed to revel in it.

Later in that story, talking with her grandparents at their place, we learn she has done this at least once before, and is somewhat uncomfortable if not embarrassed about that old memory. I wondered, when was the first (only? I don’t know) time this happened? How old was she? What were the circumstances?

And thus this short story was born.

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Tamera (pt9; end?)

On the first hand, this short story raw is complete

On the second hand, I ended it in such a way to pick it back up again, later.

On the gripping hand, I’m going to bet this pisses a lot of people off.

Working on another short. Not sure when I’ll have enough to start posting it.

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Tamera (short story, pt3)

Working title will be the MC’s name. No guarantees when I finally add it to a collection. This at least gives me a Category and Tag.

I’ve mentioned in my published works that China is in a bad way right now. Their neo-colonial experiment in Africa was bleeding them and when the US and EU disintegrated, there went their customer base. They are in the modern version of the Era of Warring States, regional powers of all-against-all. That has allowed both the Russians and Japanese to continued their build up of power on earth and above it with little to no interference. Thus, my thought is, rather than an air assault legionary battle group dropping into Hefei, it might instead by one of the imperial family with a boat-load of money. “Nice fusion reactor you have there; shame if something happened to it.”

“It’s sometimes easier to bribe armies rather than fight them.” Sidney Reilly to Boris Savinkov.

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Still no Title

There are going to be A LOT of people packed into this story. I’m off DayJob tomorrow but my priority shall be getting the “Regent” MS to my copyeditor and a series of descriptions of what I think might work on a cover to my designer. Once all that is finished, I’ll turn back to what’s happening with this poor kid.

The sequences are shorter as this is supposed to be a short story, right?

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Colour | Epilogue

And that’s a wrap. 67,800 words of “Regent.” For those of you reading along from the beginning, congratulations. Anyone who has commented here or sent me a note, I appreciate your input and it all goes to make the story better.

I’ll be doing some editing and formatting for a day or two before dropping this load onto my copyeditor. At the same time, I’ll see if my cover designer has not frozen to death in central Germany to prod her into action. With chance and luck, I can have this commercially available by the end of January.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Arrested Colour

Bit of a whiplash installment: “you’re back to work! now you’re arrested!” At least Jimmy gets some solid advice from his friend, Loup Ypres.

That guy interests me. He already mentioned his family coming to Quebec from Algeria. That was, what, around 1962? I recall that the Separatist Movement got a reboot from those French who had lived in Algiers for generations and were suddenly unwelcome refugees in their own country. Is Ypres just passing on family lore or has he been behind bars?

With trans-Rocky Mountain Canada controlled by the Russian Empire, if Aurie could pull off something in Quebec and the Maritime Provinces, Rump Canada would collapse almost immediately. I wonder if she has looked that far ahead? If she did, she has to shelve that for her stint as regent.

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Colourful Friends

Some older, wiser heads come over, both to check on their friend and find out what happened. In all that, the conversation quickly takes a dark turn.

I’m still a few thousand words ahead. We know from the last scene with Aurie that at some point Jimmy is transferred to Halifax. I am a bit torn as to what happens after that. Having him, essentially, sit back and wait for Hartmann to rescue him, after she already did once from the pirates, would be demeaning to his self-image as a man. Burns assembles rockets, so we know he’s not dumb. And works in commercial fishing, lobsters and crabs, which is hard, dangerous work, so he’s not physically weak. How to be heroic and noble without being shot by the secret police? Thinking about that…

I wonder if Ypres and Jansen ever get together?

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Colour Her Surprised

Right on the heels of hearing the wife of a Crown Prince is not allowed to travel, Aurie gets another shock to learn Jimmy Burns is no longer just under house arrest but the authorities are transferring him to the provincial capital. Without her older friend there for her, she might have started two wars in five minutes.

As an encore, Colour then goes on to suggest a way out of this mess, with her nephew on the Northern Federation’s Governing Council playing a part.

Starting, or I suppose, resuming, in the next installment we are back to Jimmy’s perspective. I must have had a lot to cover as I already lay down about 3300 words. This is morphing into my largest book ever.

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