Tag: politics

Up the Yazoo

Which, for my overseas readers, is an actual river and city in the State of Mississippi.  Faustina has to move fast:  both to prove herself as a legionary commander and to show that she’s better than humans.  In this segment, the first of two before the Battle of Winona (there will finally be shooting, I promise), she schools her distant relations on strategy and tactics in the former US as well as that attacking the enemy’s mind is always more effective than attacking their body.

I am also older that to write a campaign, you have to plan a campaign.  A visual example of that is at the very end of this entry.

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Take Me to the River

My wife wafted through the dining room where I write.  “When did your Breakup stories stop being fiction?” she asked.

I never wanted any of this.  It was just to be a backdrop to the relationships I saw.

Anyway.  Part Two of “Empress’ Crusade” begins!  As is my wont, I skip forward almost three months and put Faustina at her destination:  Vicksburg.  But, as her father pointed out, and her uncle told her brother, “anyone can get into trouble; it’s the professionals who get out alive.”  I think I’m about to see what that looks like.

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Tough Times Demand Tough Talk

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!

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Another Half-halt

Got the copyedit of “Princess’ Crusade” back with the typical thousand corrections.  As always, a humbling experience.  But this time, also a vital one.

After my little so-called vision as to where my current MS, “Empress’ Crusade” might be leading me, I was increasingly aware that I was having trouble keeping my future history dates in my head.  When the PC edit came back and at three times pointed out and asked “is this date correct?  is her age correct?” I realized that, even though I’ve been shown some very interesting things about Faustina and the young man who is the Mayor of Huntsville, I have to sit myself down and draw up a proper timeline of all primary and secondary characters, what has already happened, and what I think will happen.  “EC” is going to unfold over two in-book years and I cannot have my readers jerked out of the story saying, “that makes no sense… the timing is all wrong!”

Below the fold is what I was able to get down following the triumph.  A little politics, a little romance (maybe?), and a swim across the Tennessee River.  Hope everyone who is sheltering in place has ordered copies of my books to keep them entertained!

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Rally, Ho!

Faustina goes to a recruitment rally as she has very little time to recruit and train men.  I’m already sure that her legions for the Mississippi Valley Campaign will be under-strength:  eight cohorts each instead of ten.  I’m doing much research on the side to learn how this will play out.

Afterward she and her newest legate discuss the background of what might have been going on in the lands to their west and southwest.  If talk about HBD scares you, just skip over that part.

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Council meeting, pt 2

Wherein Faustina shows just a little of the iron in her otherwise sweet little girl persona.  I know I mention a dinner and another meeting but I think those will happen in the background and be alluded to by her while she frantically recruits and trains another 12,000 men.

Also below the fold is a poor map of what her world looks like, right now.  The red areas are the city-states that survived the Breakup or, in the case of Huntsville, were rebooted shortly after.  The blue region is what Faustina conquered in “Princess Crusade” (available soon!) and is under her personal dominion.  The blue arrows will probably be her main axis of attack toward Vicksburg.  But there will be many, many marches and counter-marches to bring the locals of the old Deep South under her control.

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Council meeting, pt 1

Who doesn’t love a meeting?  Besides, that is, every normal person on Earth?  Still, no matter what form of government you have, consensus among those who actually run things is critical for longevity of the oligarchy.  And all governments, everywhere, are oligarchy.

In this first part we find Faustina’s success in Savannah to already be destabilizing to the powers-that-be of Greater Knoxville.  The issues here are internal.  Part two, this weekend, will be external.  I wasn’t sure where our main character was headed, but out of the mouths of babes, little Aurelia had it right back in the latter parts of “Princess’ Crusade.”

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Second Shaft

Just coming off of ten days on second, or evening, shift at my DayJob.  It might be a good shift for older folks with nothing better to do or students with morning classes, but I hate it.  You wake up late with only a few hours before work.  Work ten hours, get home at midnight and go to bed.  What little time I have I to myself was spent with my subconscious mind fretting about work.  So precisely nothing got done writing, regardless of my Lenten obligation to complete “Empress’ Crusade.”

Having worked the weekend I had today off and thus have tried very hard to get back into the groove.  Although I wanted to keep this early section focused on humans, Reina informed me that was not to be.  Once she has her say, even Faustina finds her plans for the future suddenly in flux.  My next installment, when Fussy asserts herself against the Council of Five, is going to be very, very interesting.

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