Tag: politics

MachCiv Dreams – Empire’s Agent

Last night was family movie night:  the Charlton Heston version of “Ben Hur.”  I was pleased that my teen girls sat still and seemed to take all three hours of it in.  Gen Zyklon indeed!  However, as a opportune result of that I was unable to scare up time to write.  Priorities:  God, family, friends.

Late this afternoon at DayJob, I mentioned to Friend Tracy that I not only didn’t know what to write, I had not idea what I wasn’t going to write.

“You’ll be fine.”  She tossed back.  There’s a reason I love (storge) her.

Looking at dinner, leftover Hungarian chicken paprikash, I thought about that.  Hungarians.  The Viszegrad Group… the survival of central and eastern Europe.  What would that look like in my world…?

Let’s find out.

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MachCiv Dreams – Death Ship (end)

And now, having been given a glimpse of the beginning of ‘Crosses & Doublecrosses,’ and now the end of it, you might understand why I really never wanted to write the 60k words in between.  Awful people.

Easter Egg in the Open:  give me five LIKES and I’ll post the coda.

One week of Lent left!  What to write about now?

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MachCiv Dreams – Death Ship (pt.4)

Things coming together nicely.  DayJob is better for the next week as my boss is on vacation.  With that mental pressure off I thought about writing through the weekend, but recalled I must get my submission for a new cover up on 99designs; that’s a week overdue.

I realize I’m lecturing a little bit but at this point in his life, Barrett has no one else to talk to.  His daughter, Lily, mentions that in passing in ‘The Fourth Law’:  “Had her father lost all of his friends?”

A pyramid of human skulls is little comfort in your old age.

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MCD – Pine Bluff 5 (end)

“Can’t you just say, ‘the end?’ one of the pharmacists I work with asked.  The man’s idea of ‘writing’ is a doctor’s illegible scribbles onto a pad, so I value his opinion not at all.  Still, I did need to wrap this up and try to keep at my daily installments of creative writing.

I’d only the vision of Fausta walking the evil woman out the door.  Until I started typing that out just after dinner, only then did the rest of the scene unfold into my mind.  I hope everyone enjoyed this micro-story!

I wonder where we’re off too, tomorrow!

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MCD – Pine Bluff 4

I realized that in serializing this story, I have begun to leave each post on a cliff-hanger.  Very bad form:  if that becomes a habit, my novels will suffer to the point of death.

So, this time, in our flashback, we flashback further, then flash-forward.  Hey:  it’s Valentine’s Day:  I should be flashing somebody!

Aside:  this ‘little’ sub writing exercise is already north of 2300 words… what did I say about 1500…?  I so need to get these folks out of town!  I wonder if the cocoon in Abandoned Factory has hatched…

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MCD – Pine Bluff 1

I suspected this would happen:  my small writing exercise would trigger something that goes on longer.  I’m hoping – hoping! – that this is only going to be 1000-1200 words, total.  That’s all I’ve seen as yet.

This, originally, was a scene from my second novel, Echoes of Family Lost.  However, because of my writing style (start in the middle, use flashbacks for details) this just didn’t fit.  And worse, it allowed me to start writing exposition rather than dialog.  It’s a failing of mine but at least I know it’s there.

The gist of this is that Lily Barrett, her friend Fausta, and their guide, Orloff, are on their way from the Republic of Texas towards East Tennessee, to find someone very important to her.  The badlands of post-Breakup America are a rough place, but charitas may be found in unexpected places.

See?  That’s me, talking again.  I’ll shut up now.

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MachCiv Dreams 3

Looked over some notes from a project that never worked out:  “Crosses & Doublecrosses.”  It was to be a political-espionage thriller.  I stopped writing the story after about a page and switched to notes.  After ten pages of notes, I realized that 1) this was work, not fun, and 2) I’m not cut out for this sort of story – at least, not right now.

It was to be the back-story of what happened in Texas during the Breakup.  The main character was Sylvia Fernandez, a lawyer who comes to work for Clive Barrett and his state terror organization I modeled on the Checka.  Clive Barrett is the father of the heroine of my first two novels, T4L and EFL.

Below the fold is one of the introductory scenes.  Looking at my notes, I’d forgotten that I’d cross-populated this part of the story with a character from my visual novel, OTChi Kocchi (reviewed here).  I was younger then.

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