Tag: ideas

Wandering into the Future

Editing and cover for ‘Cursed Hearts’ complete and the hardcopy proof will be in my hands Thursday or Friday.  I’m sure there’s a half dozen more surprises lurking in there for me.  So for now, I can sit back and relax…!

[Wanders around the house.  Vacuums upstairs.  Looks at interwebs.  Glances at watch:  noon]

Bored!

I’d a notion last night this would happen, but was far too drunk to worry about it.  In the few quiet moments at Mass this morning, I did.  If I don’t start writing something, I’ll go crazy.  So, I paged through some notes and pondered.

At first, I thought about striking out in a completely different direction:  going back to the script I wrote for the Steampunk Reilly graphic novels; it has a good series of stories held together by a coherent overall arc and a brace of interesting characters.  It also has nothing to do with Machine Civilization.

About a week ago on A Writer’s Path (a super resource), I read an article about why a writer should, basically, “stay on message;” if you do SF, do SF.  If you write romance, write romance.  Given that I’ve written SF, religion, magic, romance, horror, friendship all through visual novels, traditional novels, websites, and picture books, I considered that to be a crock of shit.  In fact, I’ve very deliberately chosen to change genres, just to see what I can do.

However, there might be a useful nugget there still:  while I have used different characters and settings to tell different stories, they’ve – so far – all been in my future history, Machine Civilization.  Mulling on that – and that I think steampunk is much better suited for a visual medium – I put the Reilly story away.  Again.  So, what to do?  There on the sidebar (or in the Menu, depending on how you’re viewing this) is my free novel/writing experiment, “Defiant.”  It’s just possible that I could edit Acts 1-3 into Part 1 of 2 of another novel (and that would be a lot of editing!  It was never designed to be a free-standing story!).  It has some romantic elements that I could turn up or down, as well as a strong military theme.  Some politics, but not so much that my head starts spinning by page five (as it did with ‘Crosses & Doublecrosses).

Then again, having just come off of a novel, do I want to undertake something big again?  Would maybe two or three short stories be better both to keep me writing and the creative process engaged?  Short stories can also be scaled up, witness, ‘It’s Just Business’ (that was the original title) turning into ‘Cursed Hearts.’

Sighing into my computer screen, I imagine Ai’s family, Nichole’s family, and anyone left alive at Neuroi Corporation, sighing back at me, wondering when Stupid Writer will tell more of their stories.  Apologies, friends:  I’m trying.

-Punk

Background:  Archimedes of Syracuse, per the orders of General Marcellus, is not killed in 212 BC by a Roman legionary but is brought to Rome to walk in that general’s triumph the following year.  Paroled, he spends the last five years of his life in an insula in the Suburra, successfully completing his notes on his invention of calculus.

Those notes, and the others recovered from his workshop in Syracuse, are used by Roman civil and military engineers over the next two hundred years to accelerate the growth and stability of the Late Republic’s provinces.  By the time of Octavian’s monarchy, Germania had been a province for one generation and Parthia for two.

Around 50 BC, the observer of natural phenomenon, Varro, formerly Pompey’s biographer, invents a primitive steam engine for use in mines and agriculture.  Circa 10 AD, Hero of Alexandria creates a cooling jacket that improves the efficiency of Varro’s engine by several orders of magnitude.  The Roman Empire enters the Steam Age.

 

Story:  (c. 100 AD) Marcus Quinctilius Justus Varus Pius, Justus to his co-workers, is a mid-level clerk in the Licinius SA international trading firm.  Besides his day-to-day actuarial duties, he spends most of his time trying to not be reminded that he is the sole surviving family member of “the last general that lost a Roman Army,” his great-grandfather, some ninety years ago.  However, because of his mother’s Parthian background and his knowledge of that language, he’s tapped as an assistant to a trade mission  – sanctioned by the Emperor himself – to the far land of Sirica (what we call China).  Roman and Serican traders meet all the time in India and the isle of Taprobane, but this was something different:  find an over-land route where Roman engineers could build a road for trade.  Or invasion.

After many adventures and close-calls, Justus and his party come to the borderlands of Serica.  There, in the city of Liqian, they have their first shock:  the citizens are the descendants of legionaries captured at the battles of Carrhae and Phraapsa and forcefully relocated to the Parthian NE frontier.  After so many years, are you here to guide us home, they ask?  Close on the heels of that, Justus quite by accident stumbles upon the Sirican’s greatest military secrets, and thus a chance to redeem his family’s name:  the powder that explodes.

 

Just an idea I had.  Thoughts?  And what would you call this?  Romepunk?  Marblepunk?

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent Cover?!”

Apologies to Henry II Plantagenet.  I’ve eleven days to decide a book cover between my two finalist.  I’ve been stumped for two days and want to be done by this weekend to get published, soonest!  A link to where you can take a look and vote is below.  Opinions welcome.

They’re both so tanjed good!  How to decide…?

https://99designs.com/contests/poll/2nc3oq

 

“Two trains leave the station…”

We all hated word problems in math.  To commemorate this, forty years on, I created a word problem for myself in English:  Chris leaves home on day -1, arriving in San Diego on day 0; the story between Chris and Cat unfolds, coming to a head when little sister drops into their love nest on day 12.

From the other side, Maya leaves home on day 1, spends some time in a hospital, travels by freighter then airplane, arriving in San Diego on day 16.

16 – 12 = 4.

Well, crap.  I knew there was going to be a discrepancy, but four days?!  So, putting down the coffee and picking up the wine, I did this to the Chris/Cat side:

 A week had passed since their dinner and the odd ceremony Cat and Anton had performed on him. Although he did not understand, it had been efficacious in at least one way: his need to feed on the life force of animals was significantly lessened. Beyond that, home life with Cat had settled into a simple routine where they helped one another as much as they could. Chris still occasionally wondered whether he was imposing, but never detected that feeling from his cousin. If anything, she grew closer to him, both emotionally and physically, although it seemed something held her back from taking the next step, even after her ‘incident’ in the shower. Ah, well, he thought.

That gives me CC at +3 over M.  Sooo…

“She’s made remarkable progress in her recovery over the past three days, barring her memory, of course.” He took a drink of his coffee.

See what I did there?  Now the stories synch, with all my main character getting together for the bloodletting on day 19.  Back to coffee.

Sidelined

At long, long last, I’ve my three main characters (Chris, Cat, Maya) in proximity, at UC San Diego.  I also came face-to-face with a problem I’d known, but chose to ignore:  they are almost exactly one week out of synch.

For Chris & Cat, just two weeks have passed; an eventful two weeks!  However, for Maya, it’s closer to three – if not a day or two more.  Once I start editing, I’ll have all my notes and glosses to tally everything up.  But:  a week apart.

Last night, came home from day-job, made coffee (1/2 and 1/2 reg and decaf so I don’t kill myself), added some brandy, and was able to finish C&C’s trip home from the Newman Center and their dinner (just what was Cat alluding to when she whispered her embarrassing desire to Chris?).  After that, I got Maya from the SD airport to the NE side of campus, where the Supercomputing Center (and thus, Gordon) is; what an UGLY building!  Maya uses a bit of future-tech to talk to Gordon – with a cameo by Dorina – and she leaves, hunting for her brother and his intended.

A week out of synch.

I stared and the screen all the way through the second coffee/brandy.  Nothing.  Metaphorically tossed everything into my unconscious mind and descended to the basement to watch some animes with my wife.

Woke up.  Nothing.

Just before lunch, I saw something:  while Maya was in the machine’s home – ‘cyberspace’ if you will – who’s so say the passage of time was 1:1 with ours… especially with that very odd incident with the male figure, whom she couldn’t see, at the end, who called her ‘my daughter’?  What if Gordon had kept the room with the sensorium locked for – oh, I don’t know, let’s say, a week?  That gives me two things:

A solution to my temporal decoherence and a very, very hungry Maya.

Back in the game!

Dinner.

I’d announced to my family yesterday that there were leftovers in the fridge.  I told my wife I’d not be watching anything in the basement, thus not turning on the pellet stove.  To all and sundry:  leave daddy the eff alone:  he’s writing.

It’s 2245 now, past an old man’s bed time, but I’ve 3.2k words for today.  MUCH more importantly are the milestones:  I’ve radically changed Chris & Cat’s relationship with a pivotal secondary character, and got Chris baptized.  Hey, when you consider yourself a writer of nominally Catholic stories, things like that matter.

So:  I got the cousins from UCSD to the Hotel del Coronado.  Pre-dinner politics.  It wasn’t until Cat excused herself to the bathroom that I saw that Anton has lost his mother when he was a boy; that allowed me to radically change the dynamic between these three.  This is going to echo through the rest of the novel; probably upping the death-toll, too.

Below the fold is another example of why creative writing sometimes scares me:  as recently as two hours ago, not a single idea of any of this existed anywhere inside my head.  Sometimes it seems for me that prayer is an ‘SDI’ project.

Continue reading “Dinner.” →

Dogging My Steps

Good news:  second biopsy on dog came back as a polyp.  No cancer.  Bad news:  second biopsy on dog came back as a polyp; so it might regrow like some tanjed weed if the surgeon didn’t get it all, branch-and-root.  *sigh* Time will tell.  Otherwise, Lucky Star is doing fine.

Accepting the fail of another NNWM is relaxing:  my pacing of writing is much more like what I was doing over the summer with Defiant… about 500 words a night with the occasional ~1200 word burst.  The story is much less forced and much more like my usual pedestrian* style.  I’m happier about that.  Not that I don’t have an hard deadline:  I finally got round to seeing the longer trailer for Ghost in the Shell.  Never read the manga, never saw any of the animated movies.  So, a show about machines and what it means to be a person.  Nope, I got nothing on that.  Better have Cursed Hearts published before that comes out!

*No, really.  I actually have Chris and Cat wandering around UCSD campus… Continue reading “Dogging My Steps” →

Timing.

Honestly, that last went too fast.  At least, in my opinion.  But, ‘Defiant’ is meant to be a writing exercise, not a true novel.  I do, now, think that I’ll edit it and turn it into one, but that’s in the mists of the future.

Want to type the final third of this rather large episode, but tired.  Good day at Day Job:  just Friend Tracy and me; everything done right and on time with no caterwauling.  Had to come home and push-mow 80% of the backyard, though.  I’ve gotten very used to my girls doing that over these past two years.  The next – and hopefully last – time we move, I want to be in a forest clearing, with no grass, just crops and vegetables.  And bunkers for the MG42’s that our house AI, Continuity, will control.

At last I’ve got Muller’s troop on their way back to Portland, and we all know the reveal about Multnomah Falls; Nike assures me “it’s going to be fabulous, darling!”  We’ll see some people we’ve not in a while.  Then, ‘Defiant’ will go to sleep for at least a month.  My priority will be to get “Henge’s Big Day!” (don’t worry, I’ll start posting about it when we get closer) physically published.  When I do come back to the City, I’m thinking that the fourth section will be a four to three-month flashback, of what happened between Nichole and Joe.  I think a lot happened, but I don’t yet know.

Off to go help Nike set up tables and tents for the party.  It’s late Decemeber in Portland; cold rain!  Of course they need tents!  Oh!  Outdoor propane heaters!  Good idea!