Tag: romance

Lies, tanjed lies, and blog posts.

I’d really like to say that RealLife(TM) has been really busy.  And, I’ve been working hard on finishing ‘Cursed Hearts.’  Plus, there’s this new story idea I’ve been playing with….

It’s all a lie:  I’ve been a lazy drunk for a month.  I come home from my day job, make dinner for the family, drink shitty wine and watch anime.  My wife noticed immediately (my ‘jerk’ factor goes up rather quickly when I don’t write – my girls think it’s funny:  ‘daddy’s on another alt-right rant again!’).  So, in a moment of clarity (and a quiet house with no-one to bother me) I braved Writer’s Fear and sat down with Nichole and…

Wrote a way to get Maya onto Miramar Air Station…

Wrote Chris and Cat taking a tour of a C-130H… but, God help me…

I STILL HAVEN’T STARTED KILLING MY MAIN CHARACTERS!

i suck

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One last fling…

I’d this in mind yesterday.  Honestly, I don’t know if this will make it into the final novel or not:  this takes place about eight hours after Anton and Maya make their pact.  In case I kill everyone first, I wanted to share.  It’s silly, but, then, so am I.  I’d no idea that Cat was so pervy!  After all, ‘Cursed Hearts’ is supposed to be horror/romance!

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Writer’s Fear… and cheese

Being Spring, I was cleaning up things in the backyard. Gave ‘The Dog with the Golden Nose’ a haircut.  Finally made some coffee, added bourbon, and got Maya to cross paths with Debbie & her Rottweiler, Daisy.

Ran away to make dinner for family.  After that, was itchy enough to take bi-weekly oatmeal bath.  No! I’m not avoiding…

Grabbed notepad and pen (I’m a lazy writer, not a stupid one) and jotted down Maya’s break-in to Chris & Cat’s place.  Then:  blank.

Got more red-piss (the cheap wine I drink; told my wife to cut me back once ‘CH’ is finished) and a hunk of cheese for dessert.  Saw more:  Maya’s  discovery of Cat’s condition, her escape – after killing Anton (and thus knowing his plan) – as Maya races towards the guarded hangar at Miramar Air Station.

Five months ago, I saw everyone dead in a subterranean parking garage.  Perhaps that was in error.  I don’t yet know: does the fight start in the hangar, and C&C retreat?

“Ask again later.”

PS Yesterday was also a local author fair at the county public library.  Meh.  Not much, but I’d brought bourbon, so there was that.

Writer’s Fear

I’ve never had writer’s block.  Nope, not even once.  I sit down, usually at a computer, but still, occasionally with pen and paper, and write.

What I do have, is Writer’s Fear.  If several days go by without said ‘sitting down,’ I am afraid that once I do, nothing will happen, that I’ll just sit there.  So what do I do?  Everything else:  clean house, walk the dogs, run for food and booze, get drunk early and watch anime… anything to keep me from facing my fear.

I’d put off writing for five days this week.  I’d a great weekend of several thousand words, even into Monday and Tuesday, I’d figured out Maya’s time-lapse, inadvertently introduced Emma Miller… and did everything I could to not touch Nichole (the laptop I do 99% of my writing on) until this (Saturday) afternoon.  Finally, fearfully, with only one partial scene in mind, I began.  That was four and a half hours ago; 3k works ago.  Chris, Cat, and Anton are in a small armored column on their way to Miramar Air Station, and Maya finally killed someone in San Diego.  It was so easy!  I’m over 60k words, and not even to the Big End… which just makes the Fear worse.

Will I be able to do this tomorrow?  My family’s coming back from vacation, so I should wash our bedding.  The weather’s getting better, and I need to paint the trim of the entire front of the house.  After Mass tomorrow morning, I should stay for Adoration for at least an hour….  I should… I should…

Fear.  It’s a horrible, corrosive disease.

“I must not fear.
 Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”

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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!

Baton

Over 50k words, he said!  Just another 8-10k to finish the book, he said!

Annnnd then, Dorina showed up.  To quote from Band of Brothers:  “…well, hello 2nd Armored!”

Look, it’s NOT exposition and I AM NOT LECTURING!  I can prove it, below the fold!  These people just keep showing up… this just keeps happening…!

Seriously:  I need to start killing everyone.  No!  I mean it!  Don’t you dare click on Continue reading “Baton” →

Milestone and millstones

Today, Saturday, was the semi halfway point between both my girl’s birthdays.  We all, plus my mother-in-law (we sat far apart) went to a nominally Japanese steakhouse.  I bet I spoke more anime-Japanese than the staff.  Still and all, good time, good food.  Eldest Daughter is now Sweet Sixteen.  She said there’s a boy she’s fond of.  I said I have rifles about which I feel the same.  We have one another’s measure.

I’ve broken 50k words.  In and of itself, that means nothing, but recall I was raised on NaNoWriMo’s “50k words in November!” so it kind of sticks.  What’s happening at that word mark is below the fold.  I’d guess another 8-12k to kill everyone, er, wrap things up.  Following that, as I said in a previous post, editing will consist of adding material to make the modules I’ve written, over so much time, link to one another.

Will Deonne in two sentences completely changed how I write horror (it works, now), but I know I still suck at action/fighting.  Anyone have any ideas as I head into the final Act?

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And… that’s a MRAP!

Sorry:  bad pun about how Chris, Cat, and Anton make their final stage north into the ‘no-go’ zone between San Diego and the LA basin.

From having nothing just over a week ago, I’m pleased with the 14k raw material words for how Chris and Cat fell in love with one another.  I was also able to get a couple of more plates up and spinning for Maya to cast down in the next act.  There was even a little Easter Egg from an unexpected guest appearance!

Below the fold is a some verbal sparring with Chris and Anton; Cat makes a brief appearance in a towel.  After posting this, I’m making coffee – yes, with some bourbon – and will get Maya on her way out of the Vancouver BC Airport.  She’s been cooped up there for three days (I think), waiting for one of the rare flights south.  Not sure if she killed anyone… maybe.  Through her eyes we might see the burnt-out, dead city of Seattle as they fly over.  A few hours after that, Maya will be standing outside the San Diego Airport, just miles from her brother.

I cannot wait to see this!

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Xenophon’s brother

Just over another 10k words this weekend!  As I said to a friend of mine, I feel like a wrung-out dish rag.  But, once I’d the key – the sight – from late Friday, it was so easy!  Part of my last post was just that:  Chris and Cat closing the gap between them.  What I wrote since then was the 3+1 times they made love (slightly different than having sex), although I only covered #1 and #+1 in detail.  That, plus another one of Chris’ recall-dreams of his time at Neuroi Corporation, this time, talking with his kid sister, Maya, made for a fantastic weekend!

Anton is sleeping with Chris & Cat’s next door neighbor; that’s complicated!  And he’ll be giving them a tour of the northern ‘no-go’ zones around Camp Pendleton.  The civilians of San Diego think the Mexican Army killed about 100k coming south from the 19MM in the LA Basin.  Truth is hard, sometimes.

After what he sees, it finally occurs to Chris to reach out to experts beyond him:  even machines suffer from the “if I’m good at this, I’m good at everything!” mental illness.  The moment he does, he’s going to realize just what he’s overlooked, and how close he and his beloved are to an horrible, violent death.

This is SO COOL!

PS It was pointed out to me by someone in RealLife that my ‘below the folds’ are all banal (my word, not theirs), not ‘the good stuff!’  Well, duh!  I welcome everyone into the world I’m making, but this is work, and I want to be paid for it.  ‘Defiant’ was, and is, for free.  Intellectual property is worth at least, if not more, than physical property.  Example:  a water pump is worth money; learning how to make a water pump, one or two orders of magnitude more.   To continue the analogy, my snippets, in and of themselves, are slightly entertaining.  I hope, once complete and edited, y’all think that they plus the other 45k words are worth US$7.

Thank you so much for reading!

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Networking

Had to ask my wife about this one:  what would a woman do if the object of her desire, whom you thought was unobtainable, was suddenly right in front of you, and open to your affection.  For her, for example, if she ran into Kamenashi Kazuya and he invited her for drinks and more….

Her eyes got all dreamy and she began to drool.  Once that was under control, she related to me how Cat acts, below the fold.  Interesting!

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