Done story is done. Here’s the first of the last of the raw manuscript.
Without five to six figures up front, I’m never doing a writing trial such as this again. It will kill me. This is a near-run thing, as it is.
Tag: ideas
Drinks and Drama
Everyone that looks at Nichole, “…a seeming poster girl for Irish Tourism!…” is often taken aback by the fact that, one, of course, she’s a three year old machine, and two, was coded and raised in Japan. Orientals and Asians are not self-loathing as Whites have been taught to be over the past 4-5 generations. Some things obvious to her are total heresy to those about her.
Dialog! At last! Lots and lots of dialog! And while everyone is talking, I set forces in motion that cannot be slowed or stopped. We’ve Teresa firmly in the picture, a glimpse of Mackenzie; I just need Nichole’s love, Gil, back in. Once I’ve everyone in hand, it’s ‘that famous final scene.’
Grrlpower
Getting some of my main characters back together, even if only for a little while. I need things in one direxion to be political and in the other, personal. I wish it would be Mackenzie that somehow get’s ahold of Gil, who deserts and rides back to PSU once Nichole is finished with her talk with the Mayor, but Mac and Gil have no radios…
Or. Did he just recently give her something that he and the other’s at Ludlum Electric put together? Not so much a radio as a ‘panic button’? Hmmm. I’ll ponder that one. I admit, it’s kinda lame, but it get’s Gil to Mac moments before Nichole comes busting in with her Iliad of Woes from the North. N5 has talked the Mayor into trying to talk his way out of this… but what if Rhun and his people refuse to listen?
Going South
Nichole finds Joe. Most importantly, that allows me to resume dialog between characters, rather than merely giving exposition as to what Nichole is up to. I hate that; my stories live and die based upon interaction.
So. Nichole finds Joe. Tells everyone “rocks are falling! y’all gonna die!” is not much of a transition, but there it is. At least they’re talking again, minus Joe’s accidental head-butt into N5’s plug. Yeah: talk your way out of that one, kid.
Break Up
Between men and women are bad enough. Alliances? Blood, everywhere. I’ve written a bit more, but will try to add to it and post it, tomorrow. Must make an end…
“There’s a Geoff Tate on the line…?”
I thought everything was going to Hell. No, let me try again: I remain convinced that everything is going to Hell. It’s just that somehow – again! – Nichole started talking and is trying to save everyone and everything… including me. It’s a good speech of hers, and almost convincing… but as the author, I’ve the SMOD Card in my hand, and I’ll be playing it either 1) once this clown-show is coiling back along itself toward Portland; or 2) In the next sentence I write where another rider comes in with preliminary non-com casualty figures… including Rhun’s children…
Rejects
In an absurd burst of enthusiasm, I thought I could finish the manuscript this weekend. My new doctor certainly wants me to: “you’re drinking too much; your liver numbers are shot to hell.” Great. I told her I’ll cut back in a week or so, once finished.
It has been a difficult transitional period in the story. I did NOT want to write yet another battle, swirling about Nichole, but was uncertain how to write around it. Last night, after watching a few old music videos, I saw the part of Nichole and Armando having a quiet moment – not a war moment – in the back of the MRAP. That let’s me tell the story to the point where things fall to shit and she get’s out of there, on a mad dash south, where she’ll encounter Major Muller & his 2nd Detachment of Cavalry as well as Friend Joe, serving in Militia A, holding the supply line between Portland and Longview.
After that? Into the City with the Nation on their heels. Rocks fall; everyone dies. I’m so happy to be writing this…
Descent
Things are going to get rather unpleasant from here on out, That’s what’s it like to destroy a world.
Crossing the divide
After being so far into Nichole’s world over the weekend, my boss asked me about ten minutes into work, “Are you okay?” At least I was able to confuse her with my reply…
“I am only a little in your world.”
Fortunately I never really crossed back, so was able to rush home and toss out what’s below. Starts off playful, but once over the pass, goes dark quickly. Not sure what, beyond notes, I’ll manage the rest of the week, but I’ll do my best.
Lake Missoula
Wrote about 500 words in the early afternoon and quickly realized I was going B-F-B-F again; it happens when you’re a Pantser: you’re getting along on a storyline and suddenly realized, crap! I didn’t give that any exposition! So, I spent an hour polishing the 500 words and inserting them retroactively while making several other editing changes, all the while imaging what it was like in the 20th Century where writers quite literally cut and pasted their manuscripts.
Having said all that to say this: the first part is what I wrote about Jenkins then spent time retconning it into what you’ve already read. The rest is getting the Nation moving north and west, ending with Nichole putting on her new Bard hat! One more gloss to see the military units of the Nation over the Cascades, meeting the City’s Regular Army, then turning north against the cannibal’s main horde, as the civilians on the horse-drawn wagons make their way into the area around Napavine… and then…
machciv 