Tag: romance

2-days…

… is how long I’ve been thinking about the transition from Maya back to C&C.  She’s effectively a week to ten days behind their story, so I need to find a way to bridge that.  With my pockets stuffed with scratch paper as I went about my day-job today, I focused on that bridge.

I’d nothing.

Until around 1645.  I was looking at the 2/3 page of notes, and realized there was the bare bones of an Act of the story, there.  There’ll be some of my characteristic flash-back-forwards, and that, coupled with a ripoff of a scene of “Negima!” involving vampires on campus, should have things ready to go.

And by that, I mean, go to suck:  while I may be learning to write horror, my fight scenes are very brief: that may come from having seen real fights rather than what Hollywood sells to us.  I desire that the confrontation between Chris and Maya look something like that between Araragi and Kiss-Shot, but that’s not me.  I’m thinking more:  assault/ hide/talk/… repeat until someone is dead.

Ah, well:  I’ve made more than enough food over the last three days, creating left-overs for the next four.  I’ve once again told my wimmin-folk:  tomorrow, I’m writing; even if the house is burning down, don’t bother me.

Below the fold, Chris sleeps with Cat.  Head fake.

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Back on Rails

Still been too tired at the end of the work-weekdays to write; I’m hoping when it’s not dark by 1830 that might change in my favor.  Even so, between last weekend and this one, I’ve over 6k words, so far.  I really want to get through the dinner scene at the Hotel del Coronado with Chris, Cat, and Cat’s ex, Anton.  As Anton is the son of the General in command of the Mexican Army ‘Stabilization Force’ in San Diego, Cat realizes it’s tricky to tell a guy like that to piss off.

Prior to that, I’d written a segment featuring Yamada Hanako (Japanese slang for ‘Jane Doe’); she’s Maya’s post-car-accident amnesia personality.  A pleasant young woman worried about her future.  A future cut short when one of her doctors pushes her past under her nose just a little too hard.  Attempted murder ensues.

Below the fold, a snapshot of when Cat decides to start working out in the mornings.  Chris uses the Five Tibetan Rites.  #1 is spinning in place.  I almost yakked when I tried it, too.

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Writing Horror

I don’t think I’ve a hand for this, either.  I had my wife read the part I just wrote, in italics, below.  She wandered off muttering “I like your romance, better.”  As if I can effing write romance stories!  She praises me with faint damns.

The taxi sat silently in its parking space at the small lot at Okadama Airport. The driver’s side seat was fully reclined, allowing Maya more easy access to the driver’s brain. After finding clothes and money at Neuroi, she’d taken the rail south into Sapporo city. At the main rail station, she’d wandered about until locating the cab station and asked a driver to take her to the airport. Arriving at Okadama, it matched nothing in the memories she’d eaten. The driver said the big airport was an hour to the south, but she’d not been specific! Would she like to pay for a drive there, too?

She’d reached around from the back seat and crushed his windpipe. Maya thought about the next step, ignoring the gurgling as the man slowly choked to death. She scowled slightly; had she not killed him, he could have driven her to the other airport! Ah.

She would learn to drive a car.

She left the vehicle and looked about. There: a small bamboo patch. She inspected and rejected several shoots until she found one of just the right size. Returning to the back seat of the car, she shut the door and dropped the driver’s seat back. He was almost dead.

Maya tore out his left eyeball. With a sharp drop of her right fist, she rammed the bamboo tube through the back of his eye socket. Oxygen deprivation kept him from fighting back more than feebly. Wrenching the shoot up and left, she put her mouth to it and began sucking his brains out.

See what I mean:  clinical.  This isn’t an horror story, it’s an autopsy report.  I don’t know what to do to ‘scare’ the reader.  Yes, yes:  I chose something outside my comfort zone to push me as a writer, but maybe I shouldn’t have done that in combination with NNWM!  The other half of the story, with Chris and Cat, is coming along nicely:  romance!  Well, sort of.  Too much exposition, but cleaning that up is what December is for.

Official Word Count:  9032.

NNWM – Jumpstarting

I say jumpstarting as I’m taking a still-born idea from over a year ago and using those characters and location as a rough framework for this novel.  Re-writing and re-editing (yes, I know:  editing is for December; but if I didn’t do it now, I couldn’t have used any of that material) gave me about 1,000 words, gratis. There was a NNWM Write-In here at the Licking County Public Library – although I’m the only one here – and in the past 90 min, I was able to add another 1,000.  Good first day.  It’s my typical “start the story in the middle” approach, and even then, I’m jumping about with flashbacks.  Still not quite got the hang of horror writing, but I’m sure I’ll work something out.  The closing of what I did today is below the fold.

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A Look Back

For the first time in just over two years, I’m on vacation.  Even that’s qualified, as we’re in Houston/Galveston, but the reason we’re here is my wife’s 6 month post cancer-treatment checkup.  Still, better than central Ohio.

Had I been home, I’d be working on “Henge’s Big Day;” I’m not, so I’m not.  I did, however, see a vignette that I alluded to while writing “Defiant.”  Some skinny-dipping at the PSU pool with my main characters.  Was finally able to type it out, today.

This takes place halfway between Act II and Act III.

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‘Defiant’ – End; One.

An experiment, just to keep me writing.  People I’ve never met, places I’ve not seen – and that I don’t recall – for over thirty years.  And here I am, about 60k words later.

Creativity is occasionally creepy:  where does all this come from?

Anyhoo.  There are still flaws in what’s below.  Someday, after I’ve written Part 2, I’ll get this all cleaned up and ‘novel-ized.’

Played with different ‘voices’ in this one; too much gin to get it all right.  Actually excised a couple of paragraphs:  I was lecturing again.  Thanks, Will!

Let’s do this again.  Soon!

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“When will you make an end?!”

“When it is finished!”

My right brain is no Michelangelo, and my left brain is no Pope Julius II, but that’s how I feel about Act III of ‘Defiant.’  At the expense of my blood pressure, I loaded up on caffiene at the end of my Day Job to hit the ground running once I got home.  A quick, small dinner, then more coffee, with bourbon.  Wrote what’s below.  Next time; next time:  the party at Multnomah Falls.

God help me if it’s in more than one part.  I just type what I see, tanjit!

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Bridge

I mention this in my first novel, “The Fourth Law,” in which the AI’s there, Ai and Henge, specifically, are able to make an unanticipated link from their world, to ours.  All via Dorina, of course.  She deserves her own book, but how do I write a book about someone an order of magnitude smarter than I am?  I’d just make her seem dumb.  I’d rather die than fail her that way.

“Kissing?  This book has kissing?”  From the ‘Princess Bride’.  A wonderful movie; my eldest daughter tells me the book is even better.  Perhaps someday.  Maybe in fifty years someone will say, “‘Defiant’?  The book was soooo much better!”  Whatever.  Kissing below the fold.  Almost have Part 3 wrapped up!

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A Short; but no Top

I think I mentioned the family’s on vacation this week, so it’s just me and the story when I’m home.  And the effing honey-do list.  Got the front yard mowed this AM, a decorative garden bridge assembled and stained, and cleaned a dust bunny rhino that’d been building up in our pellet stove for the last ten years.  I may want to up my maintenance program on that….

Below, saw this all at once around noon.  Laughed out loud.  Hope everyone likes it, too.

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Brothers in Arms

Seven days.  What an awful host I am.

This one was a little odd:  I wrote the first few paragraphs about five days ago, then stopped.  RealLife(TM) got a bit busy with the wife and kids getting ready for yet another vacation (without me), but even so, I saw nothing of the story.  So, I waited.

Yesterday, I gave up waiting and went full-on coffee and bourbon.  Wrote all but the meal scene, below.  Just did that now.

This almost seems like a tangent to the plot (I’ve a plot?) but knowing now how “Defiant” ultimately ends – I think – what’s here is germane.  I’ll do better tomorrow.  Promise.

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