Tag: ideas

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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Old Friends

I’m aware the raw manuscript of C&DC needs attention.  Screw that.  I know I need a few more shorts for my short story collexion that will be three books hence.  As a result, I saw something from having re-read a line from “Foes and Rivals,” where sergeant John Brunelli makes a promise to Nichole 5.

How long would that take?  What sort or world would these people be living in by then?  I made some notes (mostly questions to myself), sat down, and got this.  About 1700 word; and this story is just beginning.  I wonder where it will go?

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Turning and turning

Took Daughter #1 off to college yesterday.  A mere two hours away.  Still:  someone who has been in my home everyday (yes, yes… field trips, sleep-overs…) for the past seventeen years suddenly… isn’t.

It’s a hollow silence; a fake peace.  Much of her stuff is still in her room and bathroom.  Her dog – who is now de facto our dog – goes from window to window with sighs.  This, coming on the heels of the raw close of “Crosses & Doublecrosses” was enough to make a special trip to the liquor store for some summer gin.  I drink a little to write; I drink a lot to make this world go away.

As I always quote:  “you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough,” so too will the ache of her relocation pass.  Time, after all, wounds all heals.  In the interim, unable to write, I took some assessment of my collexion of short stories from MachCiv.  Of those I can use (not in someone else’s sandbox), there are six, totaling 20.6k words.  One of them, the story of how Arpad and Lily meet, fell in love, get married, is currently 11k but I need to add at least 8k to complete it.  Emma’s story will need to be doubled or cut.  And, there is at least one if not two more in mind:  when sergeant John Brunelli from both of Nichole 5’s books comes to Japan as an old man to fulfill his promise to see her again; that, and a short about the machine Ninon, who you will meet in “C&DC”… who loves to fly to the stars.

That gives me one book that’s – hopefully! – less than a month from publication.  Another raw manuscript complete that should be out by Thanksgiving or Christmas.  And a collexion of Machine Civilization shorts (with commentary before each!) sometime mid to late winter 2020.

“Doin’s better than thinkin’.”

El Paso del Norte

After what I last wrote, I was stuck for once.  I thought about Sylvia’s long drive across west Texas (I’ve done it a few times; it takes longer than you think) and how it looks like that odd place where she met the Ninon person.  Still, I have already written “road sequences” for this story before… boring!  Done and done!

Saturday late morning, just before noon in fact, in the IV Room, having just finished the Batch, it hit me:  this is one of Director Barrett’s three chief underlings.  She would fly to El Paso to meet with the Mexican diplomats about the coming partition of New Mexico!  And the moment I saw her in a small jet, I knew what Ninon’s True Form was…

Into the night, out of the dark, take to the sky chasing the stars

All that we said, all that we are, waiting to fly, this is the start!

That then gave me the “machine dream” sequence I needed.  A quick stop at a bridge over the dry Rio Grande and an encounter with a Special Guest from “Cursed Hearts,” and our Deputy Director is off to the National Labs in Los Alamos to continue laying plots for the eventual termination of ExComm.

And, I just broke the 30k word barrier!  Woot.

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Cornered

Had today off.  A late start (around 1300) but was able to say down about 1700 words:  Sylvia in her new position, recruiting allies, and with a sudden, unanticipated visitor.  I think she handled herself very well.

I see one more “dream sequence,” which we know now is when she is summoned into the Machine’s world.  Then she sets off to New Mexico.  Things… things go to shit there, I’m afraid.

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Euphoria

I wrote much of this last night on bottle #2.  After Mass this morning and a few household chores I returned to it.  It stank.  Deleted and re-wrote the second half of the dream sequence then was surprised that it was Dorina on the phone and not Thaad.  These machines are like kudzu:  cropping up everywhere you least expect them.

The next day Sylvia has her first full day at her office job.  I know you guys CANNOT WAIT for that dramatic installment…  And for the person who sent me the question:  no, she and Jones do not have a relationship.  I think.

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