Tag: writing

Rent-a-Colour

One of the fun things about a future history is how everything connects together. And then adding some of those elements like easter eggs for readers to catch. Here, Aris of Aris Rent-A-Car is the same Aris (who was running a car rental) at Dallas-Ft Worth Airport in the early days of the Breakup in “Crosses and Doublecrosses”. Three generations ago. And she’s just as creepy now as she was then.

Below, Jimmy demonstrates – living – why wearing your seatbelt is important.

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Colours in the Sky

A shorter entry as things happen very fast after this. Not feeling well and fretting again, I was up early, taking some notes. I may have an idea how I want to wrap this book up around 70k words or so. Long, for me. But it will also intermesh with at least one if not two more. Given I nearly throttled someone at DayJob today, I might have lots of time on my hands in a few weeks.

I also looked at my short story backlog. Six (technically seven but one is spoken for, being published somewhere else) with a small novella at the core, much as I did “Empire’s Agent & Other Short Stories.” I’ll need at least two more. I’ve been shown almost nothing about tribe Arpeggio; that’s a possibility. India and Australia seem to be functioning countries… I wonder what they are up to? More drinking, more notes.

Speaking of: yes, I make a IT Customer Service joke below.

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Potential Allies of all Colours

DayJob continues to be a freaking trial this week but I’m seeing lots to write down. Woke up at 0400 this morning, in fact, with an image behind my eyes which will tie this book, “Regent,” to both “Crosses & Doublecrosses” from six years ago as well as the in-process manuscript of “New Russia” I walked away from in the late spring. Future histories, like those past, are webs, not linear.

Below, I think the woman who brought food is legit and knows Ypres or his family. Donegal? He might want to recall that “I was only doing my job” didn’t fly in 1946-48 (not that the Nuremberg Trials had any legitimacy; they didn’t need it. They had guns).

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Colour Her Surprised

Right on the heels of hearing the wife of a Crown Prince is not allowed to travel, Aurie gets another shock to learn Jimmy Burns is no longer just under house arrest but the authorities are transferring him to the provincial capital. Without her older friend there for her, she might have started two wars in five minutes.

As an encore, Colour then goes on to suggest a way out of this mess, with her nephew on the Northern Federation’s Governing Council playing a part.

Starting, or I suppose, resuming, in the next installment we are back to Jimmy’s perspective. I must have had a lot to cover as I already lay down about 3300 words. This is morphing into my largest book ever.

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Colourful Language

Okay, worked my way around the address. Not exactly “head-hopping” but I admit to fudging it a little. Remember: being a fiction write means you tell stories; you are a liar. Sometime you have to lie to yourself and your readers.

After being shamed by Colour, is looks as if Aurie is going all in and now willing to provoke a war with Canada. They outnumber the imperium by at least 3:1 if not more. Then again, the imperium is the only nation in history to use a fusion weapon in anger. It might be easier for them to pretend Jimmy Burns never existed and have him pushed across the border into Maine.

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Colour’s Reprimand

Another semi-anticipated break. Even with Thanksgiving here in FUSA, I was still six half-days straight at DayJob. At least for Turkey Day, Daughter #1 was home for two days from college. She’s stressing about the last classes in her senior year. Then, Saturday afternoon, I had a slice of apple pie. Since no one had got sick over the last 48 hours, I had some odd reaction to it which presented just like food poisoning, so found myself wrapped around the toilet all night. Some pharmacists I work with suggested it might be “sucrase-isomaltase deficiency”; normally congenital, people who have been on a low carb diet for a long time – such as me – can develop a very bad reaction to refined sugar. If that means no more sweets, I’m fine with that. We’ll see what happens.

Speaking of happening, this picks up right where the last installment left off, with Ed on his way and Colour trying to come up to speed to the new situation. Aurie tries to get all “humans are beneath my concern now” and Colour calls her on it. It made me think of the old Windows XP meme: “Task Failed Successfully.”

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A Colour to Trust

Largely back up and running. Not writing for nearly a week was horrible. There are still a few s/w sets I need to reload onto Rory (the new machine’s name) but I can at least type.

Getting back to the story, things, as you will read, and changing rapidly. Aurie is about to get a baptism of fire in international power politics, where who you think is a friend or rival could surprise you. Faustina had the advantage of putting together the imperium in something of a power vacuum. Aurelia is in it now, up to her neck.

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The Colour of Politics

A few days ago had my laptop not working. Not quite a “Blue Screen of Death,” but more a Blue Screen of Imminent Doom. I was able to boot to a flash drive and verify my data was intact, but that was all. Not wanting to make matters worse, I passed it on to an IT guy I know. He was able to reload Windows past the \BCD error but pointed out that at seven years old, I’d best start planning a new machine.

All data is now re-backed up on a remote HDD and I’ve ordered another laptop. I do not want to reload everything on this one just to do it all again on my new one in a week, so these updates will fall away for the next ten days or so. I’m still writing – can’t stop, or I’ll die, but I’m using Word 0.1: pen and paper; I’ll have to retype everything! First World Problems! It’s also so much slower… I’m making more notes than dialog as I cannot scribble fast enough: Reina’s demands about Mars, the Empress’ change of plans with Edward, Aurie now on her own, and – as I suspected – the Minor Powers, Canada, Mexico, Texas, smell blood in the water. All when we now know that Aurelia has a dangerous, violent streak. Not sure what Colour’s “come from behind home run” might be, but I’m counting on her.

As you can see from the story text, below, this is from WordPad. So, the formatting is completely different. I’ll do better when I get my new machine. And give her a name. What? Of course I name my machines… don’t you?

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Maternal Colour

Paperwork, paperwork. Even my little E4 in the US Army says paperwork is what runs the world. Even if you are more human than human.

This popped into my head on the drive home from DayJob yesterday. The extended Hartmann family is well known for their loyalty but this is something much more personal for Aurie. I’d say she is more open to Colour than for all the things she and Jimmy did. Eros is easy; agape is hard work.

See everyone next week!

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