Tag: war

Two-in-one

In which I sneak in two references to Herbert’s Dune in less than 2k words. After showing up at Owens CP, there’s a chapter where Gen’l Hartmann makes her way – with the proper escort – onto Fort Benning to seize her so-called sister, demi-human Alexandra Hood. It’s technical and time consuming and was a pain to write, literally, with my diseased eyelids. Below the fold is an interesting exchange as all of us, including me, are older as to the copy Reina made of Faustina.

PS Hands and eyes are slowly less bad. Had an IM shot of Kenalog-60 into my butt and am applying hydrocortisone cream to all my leprose bits.

PPS Not politics but common sense: for any of my readers in the US, make sure you have full fuel tanks in your vehicles and seven days of food in your home in case of “supply chain disruptions” following the election. This is not the 21st century I was expecting.

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Progress on two fronts

Finally got off my ass (arse for those of you in the Commonwealth) and signed a contract with Labelschmeide for all three cover of the American Imperium trilogy. She has done fantastic work for me before and I highly recommend her.

The mixed news is that the first, “Princess’ Crusade,” will not be out on Halloween. Sometimes, irrational deadlines are just that: irrational. I’ve the copyedited version of it and book two (with thanks to SZ Services), but as I just said, the cover is still under development. And, I’ll need to add an extended stemma of Faustina’s family as well as non-copyrighted maps to aid in understanding her campaign against Savannah. A delay, but not a long delay.

I also had an idea last week, after being at a standstill for five days, as I mentioned. That idea blossomed into the two chapters I wrote over the weekend; having two main characters now is a great amount of work for me to keep track of things. Nonetheless, the Battle of Opelika is nearly over. With a chapter to mop up, it will take 1-2 chapters to evacuate the feral population of Atlanta. Or kill them.

Below the fold is General Hartmann getting back into the fight after nearly dying from the 105mm artillery.

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Transitioning

No, no, not like one of those emotionally disturbed who should be looked after and prayed for rather than being pumped full of chemicals and abused by surgeons who were the second-to-last in medical school (last being abortionists, of course).

This transition is having had my moment of clarity mentioned in the last post and moving from the second day of the Battle of Opelika to its immediate aftermath. Rather than recapitulate the entire chapter, below the fold is the last third of it, featuring acting legate Chesney – Faustina’s ‘court jester’ – seguing into… a dream? A vision? Or is it real?

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“Hey, y’all! Watch this!”

That is very typical statement in the US South and parts of the Midwest, followed almost immediately by a call for an Ambulance or a Coroner. It’s usually uttered by males but the worse-than-cancer that is Feminism has made many women just as stupid. Think of it as evolution in action.

In my case, as I mentioned in my last post, I thought I knew what theme I might use for part two of book three of my “American Imperium” trilogy: the Pius XIII quote: “absence is presence.” That was followed by several days of DayJob and being too tired to write, then five days of writing no more than three paragraphs. Total.

On Day Five I realized my mistake. The story in general and Faustina in particular, did not want things to unfold that way and refused to show me anything. I backtracked. Talked to friends and acquaintances about my trainwreck and finally got back to work this morning. The first two chapters of Part Two (and I now wonder… a part three?) are on Faustina’s legates and the physical aftermath of the Battle of Opelika, but the next has my main character back in the limelight: did Reina really rip her soul out of her? How did she subdue or at least disconnect Alexandra Hood? Is she alive or dead? Little Fussy has become Schrodinger’s Cat and I have no choice but to open the box.

“How do you hurt a man with nothing? Give him back something broken.”

Part One of Goddess’ Crusade MS is complete. A hectic excerpt below. Part two is one chapter complete and another started. I’m… thinking about things. For 2.5 books of this soon to be published work, the camera has been fixed on Faustina. Sure, that includes interaction with her army, family, adversaries, and brief lover, but still her.

I’m not sure what to think of this idea, but as Pope Pius XIII said: “absence is presence.” That, coupled with the title of this post, is how I am carefully approaching Part Two. So carefully that I think there might be a Part Three and that “GC” will NOT be ready by 31 December 2020. *sigh*

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Trees and forests

Yesterday was a lovely time to set up on my back deck to try to complete part one of “Goddess’ Crusade.” However, about 1000 words in, I was starting to lose track of where Faustina’s legions were. Not good. I printed a map of the area and fetched some highlighters and markers. Much better!

Below the fold, does anyone recognize the template I used for this battle? Hint: 48 BC.

Looking forward to completion today. Already seeing a little of part two. It’s… weird.

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Learning much; knowing nothing

For medical reasons, I’m going to be hopped on prednisone for two weeks. If I’m going to gain 200#, God please let me write 50k words! The leading edge of this is below.

Under the new way I’m posting, and I realize now it will not be until January until I get around to completely revamping this webpage (a sales/marketing splash will be the front; this blog will be moved under “Categories”) but this excerpt is something I’ve pointed out to online and RealLife readers: I can only write what they show me. Five days ago I jotted down Fussy and the last three cohorts of Legio V making their way south. Then nothing. Everything here for you I did this afternoon. And now I’m blank again.

What a lovely hobby I have! And next post is a contest to win free hardcopies of my books! Follow and see!

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Fighting it out

Work on “Goddess Crusade” is coming along very well. Over the three-day holiday in the US I was able to average 2500 per day. One issue was the little engagement below the fold. I still don’t do combat scenes very well and wanted to try something small before getting into a huge battle in another hundred pages.

I’m actually about 40 pages past where this happens but realized I had not tossed anything out in a while. Bad me. As I’ve hit another temporary stopping point, I thought taking a break on WordPress was in order. I’ll drink a little more and see what trouble I can get Faustina in later this afternoon. Cheers!

PS WP is using a new editor and I have not taken the time to fully understand it. Apologies if this post is chewed.

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“Goddess’ Crusade” begins

After taking July and a little of August off to be older about recording and editing audiobooks, I forced myself to sit down and begin the MS for the final installment of this trilogy.  I had had bits and pieces of this opening scene – which will be the prologue of Part I (of just two, I think) but was quickly shown some little details I’d not noticed before; writing is like that:  it forces you to pay attention.

Wrote most of this out on my deck this afternoon.  Had to flee inside with all the electronics for a squall around 1500, but just now (1600) concluded the exchange at the end of what’s below the fold.  There is much packed into this:  some good news, some bad news.  And one point was news to me, too.  I love this:  writing.  I really do.

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War stories

This is the second-to-last post of my prototype audiobook files.  This longer one is chapter two of “Friend & Ally,” wherein Nichole 5 gets her first taste of war.  There isn’t much in the way of new character voices but there is a lot of action going on and I wanted to see if my voice could keep up with it all.

The final installment will be chapter three, sometime Saturday.  It will slow things down again and introduce one more important character.  Following that, I’ll create an ACX account, draw up a recording and editing schedule, and get to submitting chapters for their review; another process I am going to have to learn.

In the meantime, it has been a month since I have written a story, even just playing with ideas.  “Goddess’ Crusade” is nominally due at the end of this year and besides a vague vision of one scene in my head, the other 60k+ words won’t write themselves.

So here’s chapter two; longer, I know.  I’m still playing with Audacity’s settings and getting older about how to use it.  Cheers!