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?

Continue reading “Milestone and millstones”

Abuse.

Over the 45k word threshold.  I realize that for the first time, ever, when I go back to edit this, I’ll actually be adding words rather than taking away, as I did for my last two books.

The difference, of course, is time:  T4L and EFL were both written in about 30 days.  As such, transition from scene to scene was clear in my mind.  Now, with CH started on November 1, and it now being March 7, things are a little disjointed.  I’ve been having my wife and kids proof parts of the story, and over the weekend, my wife commented “that  was rather jarring!”  Yeah:  additional editing.

So.  I’ve got Maya in the air.  Her life just keeps getting worse and worse; her willingness to subsume everything to find her brother is breaking what’s left of her stable mind.  It’s going to be a photo-finish as to who wins:  Maya, Hanako, LEGION.

I wish I could save her.

Continue reading “Abuse.”

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!

Continue reading “And… that’s a MRAP!”

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!

Continue reading “Xenophon’s brother”

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!

Continue reading “Networking”

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.

Continue reading “2-days…”

“December”

Wow.  Never killed a guy during a blowjob.  The guy, not me.  Well, I was doing the killing… it was Maya….  Never mind; just never mind.  Obviously I shan’t be having my teenage daughters proofing that part.

Maya’s at Vancouver International Airport, waiting for one of the rare flights to San Diego.  Time to flick back to Chris and Cat (and Anton, too, I guess).  Need a double-helping of Relationship Development before a certain someone’s plane touches down.  As I learned from “Defiant,” every time I start writing romance, a battle breaks out; so, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I know it will.

Below the fold is Maya taking leave of the acquaintances she made on the freighter, Jodhpur, as it crossed the Pacific.  Machine Civilization:  it’s one, big, dysfunctional family!

Continue reading ““December””