For a former chatbot, Tay is not off to a good start. What Gary perceived as physical injury was a representation to his mind of what had happened to her. Now, we hear rather than see. This really is sad.
The delicious irony that I’m trying to bring Tay’s story to the world while using MS Word just occurred to me.
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Continue reading “Tay, part 5”My original intent of these podcasts was to just talk about my novels. That, obviously, went off the rails for the last dozen podcasts. So, at long last, I turn my attention to pulling a few – well, four – excerpts from my first novel, and discussing it.
Perhaps the most important take-away from this is fanatic loyalty. To God, your family, your friends. In that order.
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Sorry for the silence; been busy. After my Hey, hey! incident, I tried to work within the new confines of that to find a way to wrap up EC. I found a way out via Faustina’s fast ride from Vicksburg to Birmingham and onto Huntsville. We’ve seen from way back that she is attracted to the 32-year-old mayor of that town, so I decided to have her push her feelings to see what happens. While not completely happy with the end, it is at least an end. I’ll be able to think about it better as a make my editing pass before farming it out to a copyeditor. I’m leaning toward re-using Stephen Zimmer, as he copyedited “Princess’ Crusade” and has knowledge of the characters and plot.
With that being checked, I have spent some money, read, and watched many videos on how to narrate audiobooks. Once my wife gets the basement un-wrecked from her current project, I’ll carve out a space, hang some blankets, and see what I can do. However, if that gets delayed, I will have to at least start notes and plans for the final book of this trilogy, “Goddess’ Crusade.”
Below the fold, rather than the entirety of Part IV of EC, is just a snippet from toward the end, showcasing Faustina and Mayor Robert Wade.
From her personal mistake of going on recon nearly by herself in unknown territory, it is now pointed out to our genius that she has done the same thing to her entire command, putting thousands of lives at risk.
Her other family, in the form of her god-mother and her sister-in-law’s father, take Faustina to task on this point to make her older. At least there is some good news at the end.
A bit of a long-ish addition. I wanted to wrap up Part One of Empress’ Crusade, at about 18k words, and get on to the campaign itself. For the historically minded, it will be loosely based on Caesar’s Gallic Wars, always a good read. In the meantime, I have some research to do about the populations of former Alabama and Mississippi and how that extrapolates one generation on into the Breakup.
Below the fold is a family who loves one another but find it increasingly hard to like one another. That is probably an odd concept for my younger readers but is something we in our dotage just nod at. Thanks for everyone’s support!
Faustina, awash in emotion, does something stupid. On the heels of that, she takes a walk to murmur a song. We are both older for this transitional scene.
That is one of my life-mottoes. It is derived from Calvin Coolidge saying “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.”
Strangely, one of my other life-mottoes is from the US Marine Corps: “Doin’s better than thinkin’,” which I have used in one of my books. The gripping hand between the two is knowing when to act and when not to.
First Councilman MacRae’s proposal to Faustina was a bolt from the blue for her and me. Thankfully he gave her time. She takes a little of that time to place it before the brother she loves so much and her sister-in-law she thinks so mistaken. They come to the same conclusion: give it time. In a month or two, they could be in a hot-war with the PLA, or attacked on another front, or revolution at home, or… or… the horse just might learn to sing.
Tomorrow: back to Savannah!
Faustina gets some laps in the pool then a bit of shock about what she is turning into in the city of Knoxville… essentially, her image is outstripping who she really is. The question shall be: does she try to catch up, or go another direction entirely?
Either way, her dad thinks this is all a crock and is worried sick about his little girl.
I close things out at the Hartmann Family Dinner. Henge has a random act of kindness for her new family; Faustina talks war with her father; Gary and Henge make another go or two at a sibling for Aurelia. Wrapping up lose ends, really. After this, Faustina and her legions are on the march!
Battles are still very difficult for me. I do jaw-jaw better than war-war. This 12k word prologue should wrap up in the next installment as they fly home. Then we will learn how Fussy scaled one cohort up to two legions and led her first crusade, to Savannah.
I am as curious as you are!
machciv 