Worlds-Apart Blog

Chapters 9 and 10 wedging into place

2012-01-26T17:27:00.000-08:00

It took a lot of work, and a lot of cutting, but chapters 9 and 10 are finally integrated, and that winds up part one of Book 11. I really had to cut, shape, and rework those chapters even though not a lot happens in them. Part One ends with a single line from David Alkema that drives Part Two and is so out-of-left field it requires a lot of build-up to be credible. So, chapters 3 - 9 have to build up the credibility of that line. Otherwise, the reader is like, "WTF, No way!"

On a TV series, these would be the low budget episodes they make when they run out of money after blowing on effects-heavy sweeps episodes. They don't advance the plot much, or at least they don't appear to, but they keep the novel paced, and they introduce or more fully develop four of the new characters (Averill Lear, Adris Kingfisher, Reena Decker, and Helena-903) at least one of whom is really critical to the plot of Book 11 and Book 12.

And the rest? Well, by the end of Book 11, there's a mystery. A mystery needs suspects. These four women are prime suspects.

Also, lots of romance happening on that rocketship. Bill Keeler, David Alkema, Kyle Atlantic, and maybe even Trajan Lear have some kind of romantic action going on.

Speaking of Romance on a rocketship...

WA BK 11 CH 09 CH10

2012-01-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

So, I was working along putting each of the individual chapter files into the final integrated book. Chapters 0 - 8 went pretty smoothly, with just some touching up here and there. Then, I hit 9, and it was just nowhere near ready to be in the book.

Chapter Nine started out as sort of a dump where I stuck in plot elements that I would need to link one part of the story to another, and to pace the book so that the stuff that happens in Chapters 10-13 doesn't seem rushed. Because there were so many strings and different pieces, when it came time for the final edit, it was a mess. And honestly, it's more of a character development piece, and sets up several characters for their ultimate destiny. I'll have to go through it again because on re-read, I think it gives away too much.

I am really liking the character of Averill Lear. She is a complete weasel, and she is very subversive. I am pleased that her character is working out. Much better than I thought when I initially generated these chapters.

Chapter 10 had to be completely restructured. It's a crucial chapter. It's sort of the payoff for things that build throughout Chapters 1-9, and it sets up the main action for Chapters 11-17. The whole book hinges on it, so it has to be done right. I think I'll need another pass or two before I am satisfied.

Where the Gosh Darn Heck is Book 11?

2012-01-18T13:39:00.000-08:00

I honestly thought I would have Book 11 done by last Thanksgiving. I am working on the final integration of the book now, and I thought I should record why it is so far behind schedule.

1. As usual, there has been some interference from real life. The whole single dad, three kids, cats, church, and work interference.

2. Book 11 is abnormally long and complex. The plot is complex. The theme of making plans and having them not work out is a complex theme to convey. And the book is long. It will probably end up being the longest or second longest of the 12, because so much has to happen in it.

3. Book 11 is in some ways a retrospective. A lot of characters, events, and places from previous books are revisited. Every time I revisit one of those things, I have to go back to the original use of that person, place, or thing to make sure its consistent. And, oh, by the way, some of the earlier books have had to be retconned.

Anyway, with luck, the new book, new site, and new Kindle-ready copies of all 11 books will be done by Valentine's Day (Knock on wood).

Has it really been a year

2011-10-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

Book 11 is getting close to being done and should be on-line around Thanksgiving. In the meanwhile, I have put the pre-publication notes up on the new Worlds Apart Wiki. Don't worry about spoilers. These were the story notes I made before I started writing, and about two-thirds of them aren't in the book at all or have been drastically altered.

Inadvertant Parallels

2010-10-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

I was drafting out Chapters 18-22 of Book 11 this week, and just yesterday it hit me... without intending to, I'm parodying Battlestar Galactica, only minus the pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo.

By chapter 18, this is the state of play in the WA-verse: Two large ships, one named Pegasus and one named Pax Galactica are leading a fleet of smaller ships (few if any of which could be described as rag-tag) on a final quest to find Earth.

And, looking ahead to the end of Book 12, there are some weak parallels to the end of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica series, but I don't think it's going to end in a way that anyone sees coming.

New Characters in Book 11

2010-09-19T13:15:00.001-07:00

Flight Captain Will Wright
Commands one of two tactical squadrons that protect and service the Charlemagne Starlock. He hails from the Bountiful System, a heavily populated trinary system with nine inhabitable worlds and a population of 16 Billion. The Bountiful System's people are religiously observant, decent, and hardworking. Flight Captain Wright is bored with his assignment on Charlemagne, and eager for a chance to do something more interesting.

Reina Dekkar Dekkar is the leading Systems Analyst on the Charlemagne Starlock and will oversee the upgrade of Pegasus's systems and the installation of new engines into the ship. She comes from the planet Rainier III, where Matthew Driver's sister Kayliegh ended up with her husband Magnus Morgan. Reina is Kayliegh's granddaughter. Residents of Rainier III have a reputation for being blunt to the point of rudeness. Her attitude and bluntness do not win her any friends on board Pegasus.

Commodore John Wheeler

Also from the Bountiful System, John Wheeler is the base commander of the Charlemagne Starlock and lives there with his wife and three children.

He is rather dull, so nothing more needs to be said about him.

Averill Lear

Averill is the daughter of Goneril Lear and a senior diplomatic aide in service to the New Commonwealth.

These are just some of the characters. There are actually a few more I haven't done much with. Captain Woden of the FAC Fighting Mongoose is my favorite so far.

Off-Topic

2010-09-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

I just thought this was kinda cool, or kewl, if you're still in 2002.

Book 11 - Coming Along Nicely

2010-09-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

I had to take a two month hiatus from Book 11 because of a major project at work and to spend some time with the fam. But in the last week, I have managed to fill up the first ten chapters, which comprise Part I of the book. Book 11 has three distinct parts.

Part I: In which the crew of Pegasus copes with the end of their mission and makes plans for the future. I had no idea when I started that this is what Book 11 would be about, but now, it's making for very compelling story-telling. Hey. That rhymes.

Part II: Deals with David Alkema. In Book 11, he is going to do something completely out of character with everything he has done up until now. But it makes perfect sense for him to do it. That's all I am going to say. Part II will focus on this, and will end in a event that is part Pearl Harbor, Part 9-11. And I haven't decided who will get killed off in this event.

Part III: Takes place on the planet Pax, which was one of the original 12 Old Line colonies, the main colony of the Scorpio Sector. It contains the information the crew needs to reach Earth, and provides them rather urgent reasons for going there.

Book 11 Line of the Day

2010-07-24T11:42:00.001-07:00

“Nobody puts a squid in my brain!” Keeler insisted

Book 11 Themes and Stuff

2010-06-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I was still really foggy on the plot of Book 11. I had a clear idea what I needed to accomplish, it needs to bridge everything that happened in the Perseus Quadrant while Pegasus was incommunicado to everything that will happen in Book 12, where everything... and I do mean everything... wraps up. But 200 pages of exposition would be boring. I had kick-ass plot ideas for the last third of the book, but I didn't have an idea what to do with the first part.

Now I have a pretty good outline for the main plot, and from this outline the, sort of, theme emerged. Like, Book 09 was about eternal mysteries and how Governments abuse power in times of crisis, and Book 10 was about capitalism, pornography, and Shakespeare, Book 11 will be, I think, about people making plans and being thwarted before their plans can be realized.

Basically, [spoiler alert], the crew will find that they have been ordered to return to the Perseus Quadrant, and Pegasus is to be decommissioned. The A storyline will focus on various characters planning on what they will do now that Pegasus is ending its mission, especially on David Alkema. Plans will be made for new lives after Pegasus.

And then, something catastrophic will happen, rending all of their plans moot. Because life does that to you. You make plans, God laughs in your face.

And that's the theme of Book 11.

Big Chapters, Little Chapters

2010-06-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Since I went with a smaller number of extra-long chapters in Book 10, I'm think of shaking things up a bit in Book 11... lots of short chapters. Just to shake things up. Book 11 is gonna be curious, because most of what's in it is exposition, what's happened while Pegasus has been out of contact with the rest of the galaxy. The action only really kicks into gear about 2/3rds of the way through.

Book 10: Eventide Now online

2010-05-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

I loaded Book 10 on line this morning. The FTP was being hinkie --- and the front page of the main website refuses to update for some reason, but here is the URL.

http://worlds-apart.net/book10.htm

My own comments, I had a lot of trouble with B00k 10, and it's not my favorite. The first chapter is maybe my favorite first chapter of any of the books, but I just couldn't make things jell in the rest of it. Maybe it's too much of a sea-story and not enough of a space story.

Here are some of my original notes when I was sketching out Book 10. I don't think there are any spoilers here, but it's interesting... maybe... how different the final product is from the original concept. Some of these ideas made it into the final plot, and some didn't.

* Two years have passed since the events of Book 09.
* The Gethsemane children are being successfully integrated into the crew. Many are proving to be prodigies in the ship’s systems. The ‘Ferals’ have become efficient warfighters, although many retain their implants by choice because of the emotional control it gives them. Kitaen and Johnny Rook take two teams of warfighters to the harsh dark-side of the planet for ‘tactical exercises’ (War Games.) Trajan Lear has a cadet, Aeric Tuck, whom he is training as a pilot.
* Deck 20 of Pegasus has come to be known as ‘Little Gethsemane’ because of the Gethsemane refugees that have settled there, though they lack much real knowledge of their culture. It is a problematic area for the ship, with more security issues than elsewhere. Also, many of the Gethsemanians have take jobs working in Pegasus artifactories, which were badly damaged in the attack. The work both gives the Gethsemanians a worthwhile task and augments the ship’s industrial capacity.
* The Kariad ship in orbit around eventide looks like a giant contact lens. The Kariad do not leave their home-world (whose location is hidden) but explore using their lens ships, which allows them to connect virtually with any world the ship approaches.
* There are “very few” Kariad, and just the one lens ship.
* Eventide’s society is quite primitive, and the Kariad will not directly reveal themselves to the colonists. Keeler and his crew are also obligated to disguise themselves as locals. They procure a sailing ship Red Jacket through an advertisement. “Bee it knowne unto all menne, respectable merchant-trader seeks sound, sea-going vessel for purposes of engaging in trades…”
* Eventide names are a mix of Shakespearean references and names from 1980’s sitcoms. (Drummond, Keaton, …)
* Alkema notes that Keeler’s yacht back on Sapphire was named Paint the Sky, and asks why Keeler didn’t choose that name. Keeler answers that Red Jacket was the name of the Privateer his ancestor commanded before being conscripted into the Christian Fleet of the Commonwealth. (The alternative was being sent to the Desolation Prison Colony for piracy. Desolation made Yronwode look like an Arcadian Spa. Keeler and his crew were conscripted to the frigate Relentless, with Red Jacket remaining in a landing dock for use as an auxiliary vessel. Later, after an altercation with the captain of the Relentless, Keeler was transferred to the Ark Royal as first officer and later Captain. The Ark Royal was the only capitol ship to survive the battle of Ophiuchus, but the Christian Admiralty was reluctant to let a man with such a checkered reputation command their flagship. Only the threat of a crew revolt {since he had saved their lives and won the battle} saved his command. Ark Royal served as the flagship for three years until a new flagship, the Santa Maria, was commissioned.) Keeler hints that his recent “visit” to Sapphire made the name Paint the Sky too emotional for him.
* Otto Van Halen is the name of a Gethsemanian youth who serves on Red Jacket as first mate and shows a natural gift for sea-faring. He will later become one of the Geths agitating for the right to colonize the far side of Eventide.
* Parodied works: Pirates of the Caribbean, Waterworld
* Shakespearean references: The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream, Richard III,
* Eventide was an EdenWorld, either never completed or abandoned. The Anything Boxes remain, however, hidden deep in temples on the main islands. These have become the basis of the planetary economy.
* The Royals possess the Anything Boxes, and use them to produce not what is needed, but what is desired.
* The Mariners carry out Planetary Trade in the form of ocean-going trading ships. Since land is only about 8% of Eventide’s surface area (on the light side) a, oceaneering is a very hazardous occupation.
* Royals use the Anything Box to transform Queequeg into a human.
* David Alkema gets thrown in prison at one point.
* Keeler begins acting like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.
* Theme: Decline through abundance. Possession of the Anything Boxes is fought for viciously, but its possession brings about the inevitable oblivion of the one who possesses it. The Mariners, mostly, understand this, and are content to continue in their capacity as workers. Among the Royals, there is constant fighting for control of the boxes.
* Because the Eventidians are quite xenophobic, Keeler and his crew create a sea-going ship to call on the planet’s various islands.
* After studying the system intently through the thirteen chapters of the book, Keeler comes to a more prosaic solution. He destroys the Anything Boxes, except for one which he keeps but ends up using to ignite the second sun. He also convinces the Kariad to stop interfering in human affairs. They decide to become mere observers instead.
* A few hundred Gethsemane refugees settle on the far side of Eventide once the second sun has been ignited, bringing with them “some power converters, some seeds, that’s all we’ll need.” Alkema warns them that because of the planet’s orbit relative to the sun, there will be no regular day/night cycle. Rather, their side will be in sunlight half the year, in darkness or twilight the other half of the year. This is not really a big deal since a year on Eventide is only about 66 days long. Sentir Poe, the leader of the Gethsemanian colonists, insists that they will adapt.
* General Kitaen reports to Keeler and Change the results of his war games on the planet’s dark side. Originally, he had assigned 100 warfighters to hold a base and 100 warfighters to try and take the base. After the defenders had successfully routed the attackers, a secret force of 300 warriors attacked the base, forcing the two to combine forces. In the course of the exercises, there were 308 simulated deaths and 4 actual deaths from accidents. Keeler is shocked that people died, but Kitaen accepts it as part of combat training and Change takes responsibility for authorizing the war games. Kitaen goes on to say that a battle is forthcoming, and that the young Geth warriors will need to be prepared. Keeler and Redfire begin to suspect that Kitaen is a bit mad.

Hard, Easy, and Perfunctory

2010-04-19T12:33:00.001-07:00

Chapter Four took a week to integrate. There were so many changes to make, so many gaps to fill in. So many parts where I had written [and then Keeler does something] that I had to write in. Also, there's a character who originally wasn't introduced until later who was moved forward and consolidated with another character, which I thought helped keep the cast compact and less confusing and also plants the seeds for a romance with Keeler up front.

Chapter Five just took a day because it was pretty self-contained to begin with. But I worry that both these chapters and the book as a whole are coming off as rushed and perfunctory... which is ironic because Book 10 has taken longer to write than any book in the series except book one.

Haunted by Red Letter Media

2010-04-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

Red Letter Media --- the guy who does the insanely brutal but honest reviews of Star Wars and Star Trek --- haunts me. I've been wondering what he would say about Worlds Apart. And as a result, I have kind of ripped up the plot for Book 12 because I want it to be bulletproof. I want all the action and motivations to make sense.

And Why I Cut That Last Bit

2010-04-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

I cut it because it was unnecessary. As Book 10 evolved, the Shakespearean action became more and more peripheral to the central story. And the piece I cut was one of the few remaining bits directly adapted from a Shakespearean play, but which had none of the main WA cast involved in the scene. It was an outlier. It contributed nothing to the plot and broke the rhythm of the story.

I debated cutting another long sequence today because it introduces a character who basically does nothing in Book 10 and is kind of peripheral to the plot. At present, I am leaning on leaving it on because the character in question is one of the Gethsemane refugees, and one of the subtexts of the books is how the Geths are integrating with the rest of the crew. At this moment, I am inclined to leave it in, but it may still fall to the knife in the final round of editing.

The Cutting Room Floor

2010-04-07T08:03:00.001-07:00

Working through the final assembly of Book 10. I am up to Chapter Four. And I am hating Word 2007.

This whole section is being cut. It won't be in the final book. I am putting the cuts on line for no raisins.

EVENTIDE – ILLYRIA – REGENT ORSINO’S PALACE: The Palace of Regent Orsino was a lovely structure of yellowed stones, built in the style of a Palazzo that encompassed a lush central garden and fountains. Its wide windows caught the temperate breezes of Illyria, and let in the light of the Eventide sun, such as it was.
Cesario walked the front steps and paused before the great white door. There was a knocker on the front, gold-plated, in the shape of a bull’s testicles. He rapped it hard against the door.
A tall thin man opened it. He had the facial expression of someone who’d been interrupted in the midst of rubbing citrus fruit on a cancre sour. Thin wisps of hair stretched across his bald pate. “What?” he asked, inelegantly.
Cesario bowed deeply. “Good sir, my master sends me to offer my services to the Good Regent Orsino. He asks nothing in compensation, but that the Good Regent would hear, upon satisfaction with my duties, his petition for trade and commerce.”
The tall manservant regarded him warily. “We have no need have additional servants. Off with you. Go!”
He tried to close the door, but Cesario blocked it with the lower part of his leg. “For a man of Regent Orsino’s stature, there is always room for one more man to tend his estate, one more maiden to clean his chambers, one more child to pull roots from his garden; where every man in Illyria his servant, ‘t’would fail his desserts by a league.”
The thin man began kicking him, though his blows had not much force behind them. “Go away, boy, the Regent has no need of you!”
Cesario was stronger than the manservant, and able to hold the door open. “Need? Who speaks of need? That received in need is charity, what I offer is luxury. Keep me but one day, and if I’ve not found the Regent’s favor, you’ll find my bed empty in the morn…”
“And the silver cabinet as well,” sneered the manservant. “Now, remove your boot from my door.”
“Valentine,” called a voice from behind, high-pitched and effete. “Dear Valentine, give the boy audience.”
Cesario pushed the door aside and ducked past Valentine so he could stand before Orsino. “On your attendance, my lord; here.” He bowed deeply.
Duke Orsino was well-favored in looks, a darkly handsome man, and he knew how to pick clothing that showed off his rugged features to their best effect. It was only when he spoke that the effect was ruined; his voice was as high and reedy as a mistuned clarinet.
“I give thee leave to enter our house,” Orsino said to me. “Pray, you may perform that task which all my man-servants and maidservants have failed.”
Cesario bowed again. “I am your Spaniel, good lord.”
“Stand thee, then,” Orsino ordered him.
Valentine objected. “Sir, he’s but a rough and common mariner.”
Orsino tittered at that. “Then, perhaps upon completion of his task, he might favor my ear with tales of rough seas and rougher men. Boy, do you know of the Lady Keats.”
“Aye, sir,” Cesario confirmed.
Orsino was pleased at this. “Then, good youth, address thy gait unto her; Be not denied access, stand at her doors, And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow till thou have audience.”
Even if he had not heard already of Lady Kate Keats’s refusal to receive me, Cesario could have intuited the difficult of this task Orsino was setting before him. “Sure, my noble lord, If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow. As it is spoke, she never will admit me.”
Orsino shook his head. “If you wish to please your lord and be honored in the presence of my audience, you shall be clamorous and leap all civil bounds rather than make unprofited return.” Orsino instructed him. “If thy master wish my audience, then this exchange shall profit us both.”
Cesario rose from his bow. “Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?”
Orsino wrapped an arm around Cesario’s shoulder. “O, then unfold the passion of my love, surprise her with discourse of my dear faith.”
“I'll do my best to woo your lady,” Cesario replied, gently extracting himself from the Regent’s embrace.
“Not like that you won’t,” Orsino tittered, taking Cesario by the hand. “Come, let me dress you!”

Pioneers: Part 5

2010-03-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

PERSEUS SECTOR - 22 586 VULEPECULA IV -- 63 Solar Years Later

Enveloped in re-entry flame, the colony pod descended through the atmosphere. Like a giant fireball, it moved through the blue-green sky of the planet. Strange creatures looked up from the surface and watched it fall, then returned to the business of surviving.

As it crossed 2,000 meters of altitude, its orientation thrusters fired to put the colony pod upright. At 1000 meters, landing rockets fired, sending a blast of hurricane-force wind through the landing area. The pod’s final moments of descent were hidden in an expanding cloud of dust and debris.

The colony pod, 500 vertical meters of metal and composite, settled onto the surface of the colony world designated 22 586 Vulpecula IV, on the western edge of the second largest (Beta) continent.

When the dust cloud had settled, the pod’s braincore began the activation sequence for bringing the colonists out of stasis. There were 20,800 of them in total, but they would not all be awakened at once. There was a sequence to be followed. The last of them would not come out of stasis for another 210 days… about a third of 22 856 Vulpecula IV’s long year.

On level 84, a stasis pod opened. Its occupant, Adrian Bronstein, opened his eyes, and was immediately aware of the sound of wind and a need to vomit. He unstrapped himself from his pod, fell to the deck and puked out a cold, pink liquid that had stabilized his digestive system for the long journey.

He then drew in the first real breath he had ever taken, although he did not know it was his first.

There was a warm towel nearby, he took it, and wiped himself off. Then, he said his first words. “Mother, status report.”

“Arrival sequence complete,” the colony pod answered him. A screen was projected in the air in front of him, showing an external view. He reached into the locker adjacent to his pod and pulled on his clothes, thinking wistfully that it had been over sixty years since he had put them in the locker, although it seemed like only last night. He remembered the shuttle that had taken him to Chrysanthemum station, and that last wild night before he boarded the pod for its journey here.

Or was he remembering his last night at Ad Astra University, where he spent six years learning everything he would need to know to help establish a human footprint on a world 60,000 light years from his home on Balthazrr, where he had grown, where he had played groundball and cross-wickets.

He shook his head, as though trying to sort the memories. He remembered from his training that prolonged cryostasis often affected human memory; mixing up events was common. It was better not to dwell on it. There was a lot of work ahead.

“We’re here, thank God,” said a voice behind him. He turned to his brother, Aidan, pulling on his old battered flight jacket over the standard issue coveralls of the Sweetwater Pioneer Service. His hair was a mess, but then, it always was; although there were rumors hair still grew in stasis. His old aviator’s cap was tucked under his arm. That outfit must have taken a huge amount of argument to approve for transport.

“You didn’t think we would make it?” Adrian raised an eyebrow.

“Hate the idea of spending sixty years knocked out inside a machine going through hyperspace.” Aidan had been a patrol pilot with the Commonwealth Planetary Defense Force. Adrian remembered that somewhere in the lower decks was a scout craft; that Aidan would be helping scout the planet and establish the secondary and tertiary colony sites.

“Let’s take a look at this bitch,” Aidan said.

Together, they walked the cold metal deck until they reached a hatch. Adrian hit the hatch, which slid up upward. An outer hatch on the other side slid downward.

“Whoa!” said Aidan.

The pod had landed near a stretch of beach, rocks and sand spread for kilometers on either side. There were hills and woods beyond. Cottony cirrus clouds laced a brilliant blue-green sky where a single bright yellow sun peeked through. They felt its warmth on their faces and at that moment, it sank in; this world was going to be their home. They would live here, and they would die here. As pioneers, they would make this world whatever it would become.

“We made it, buddy,” Adrian grinned from ear to ear, and he and his brother shared a quick hug, followed by drawing back from each other with fists raised, a thing they remembered doing since they were little kids.

When they had finished admiring the view, Aidan pulled on his aviator’s cap and turned to get back into the colony. “Mother will be thawing out my wife next. I think she’ll want to see me when she wakes up.”

Pioneers: Part 4

2010-03-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

THE COMMONWEALTH - SCORPIO SECTOR - BELLWETHER COLONY - VLADIMIR WATANABE ORBITAL STATION

Voyager 154 was a standard, Ironhorse-class, Commonwealth Colonizer Train-Ship. From stem to stern, she measured 40 kilometers in length, ten of these kilometers were occupied by her drive systems. Arranged around her spine were 44 colony seed pods --- which contained fuel, supplies, and instructions sufficient to begin settlement on alien worlds. These were shaped like tall skinny pyramids with flatted tops and tapered bases. Smaller pods held additional equipment, tools, and processing gear. Also on board Voyager 154 were 968,000 embryonic human beings, 2,200 adult human volunteers and children in stasis, and a crew of 190.

Voyager 154 was designed for a one-way, six decade journey to the far side of the galaxy, the Perseus Quadrant. Following on the heels of the Exploration and survey ships, it would be her job to begin or augment colonies on 22 Terra-class planets. She currently orbited Bellwether colony, a pretty world of dark blue ocean and rust red continents; the nearest world to the Chrysanthemum StarLock.

An entire deck of Voyager 154’s cylindrical operations module was given over to monitoring cargo. Two cargo specialists, Potts and Dirksen, were watching the machines that monitored the colonizer ship’s cargo. It was incredibly boring.

Dirksen was very bland, tall and thin, with dirty blonde hair cut efficiently and unimaginatively. A single thin communication wire extended from his ear to the corner of his mouth. “Confirm pallet Zeta-660 locked into Colony Pod 21. All connects green. Pallet secure.”

“Confirmed and acknowledged,” said a female voice on the other side of the VOX Link. “We are gone, Cargo Control.”

“Go safely,” Dirksen told her. “CC out.”

“I am so bored,” Potts reclined in his couch and stretched.

“In six days this ship leaves for Chyrsanthemum Station,” Dirksen pulled up the navigational plots. “Then, sixty-one-point-five-nine years in hyperspace.”

“That failed to make me not bored,” Potts groaned. Potts, who was short, dark, with unfashionable facial hair, teased his fellow launch technicians to cope with his boredom. He was not popular among the other technicians.

“When the ship is on its way, we go back to ground. I think you would like that,” Dirksen answered.

Potts shrugged. He watched as Dirksen reviewed Voyager 154’s itinerary, the 22 worlds it would be calling on. “You wish you were going?”

Dirksen laughed. “Yea-go, my wives would just love that. Maybe, someday, if the Perseus StarLocks are ever finished.”

“Do you have any of your own going out the?”

“Probably,” Dirksen answered, blushing. He didn’t want to go into detail.

Potts seized on this. “I’ve got hundreds, thousands maybe. I used to give my juice to the In Vitro Project before it was canceled.”

“I am surprised they took it,” Dirksen replied.

Potts reached into the comestibles locker and opened a bottle of Jizz, (a clear, citrus-flavored carbonated beverage with a particularly raw marketing scheme) and took a long drink before continuing. “Kinda like the thought of having all those offspring, living on after me, on the far side of the galaxy. You ever think about how all these little ‘bryos gonna spend the next sixty-five years growing up in a tube… and when they wake up, they think they’re really alive, I mean, they think they’re really alive but it’s all just memories an artificial intelligence programs into them.”

Dirksen was getting bored with the conversation. “It tells them what they need to know, and gives them memories so they don’t go crazy.”

“Phony memories!” Potts insisted, Jizz spraying from his lips. “Artificial memories. Bedtime stories written by androids and told them by robots.”

He leaned across his couch, uncomfortable close to Dirksen. “And what really gets me is, how do we know that everything we think is a memory isn’t just some fake implant to keep us from going insane?”

“Mine are real!” Dirksen insisted. “My mom and dad are still alive. They live in Magnuson. I have two brothers and a sister. We spend every Feast of Alms together. I don’t know about yours.”

“Oh, I got memories… I remember a whole lot I don’t even want to remember.” Potts grinned and tapped the side of a rack. “And every one of these embryons is going to have their head filled with warm, fake, childhood memories scripted by… professional fiction writers Sweetwater pays to write phony childhoods. The ones from the same sperm and egg donor even get fed memories that they grew up as brother and sister. Sometimes, they just buy people’s childhood memories and use those. None of it’s real. They aren’t even real.”

“Who?” Dirksen asked, not sure which “they” Potts meant.

“The embryons. They grow up in a tube and the colony companies program them to do whatever they need done out there. They’re practically no different than robots.”

Dirksen cleaned his nails on his pants leg. Potts moved in still closer. “How do we know that we weren’t made the same way? Or our parents?”

“They only use this program for the far colonies,” Dirksen protested.

“So, they tell us.” Potts displayed the kind of grin that made others want to punch him.“Nobody knows what happens when they reach the other side. For all we know they wake up as deranged cannibals and kill everything in sight.”

“Potts, shut the hell up,” Dirksen said. Pretty much everybody said that to Potts, eventually. As far as Dirksen was concerned, he was real, what he did made him who he was, and that was the end of it.

Potts was quiet for a few moments, and then he said, “How do we know we aren’t artificial memories being programmed into someone else?”

Pioneers: Part 3

2010-03-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

THE COMMONWEALTH - SCORPIO SECTOR - SAN ANDREAS COLONY - NEW ATLANTA - ASTRA-PACIFIC LABS

Dr. Hughes delivered the egg-shaped transport pod upstairs to Dr. Langer, the gene specialist. Dr. Langer placed the pod under a scanner, that bathed it in warm orange light. A holographic model of the embryonic DNA appeared in front of him. “Looks very strong, this personality sequence shows a tendency toward athleticism and leadership. High intelligence gradient. This one will require minimal augments.”

Dr. Hughes let herself smile a little. “The young ones always give us the best stock.”

Langer was an older man, scrawny with unkempt hair, who wore a large multi-spectral eyepiece as a permanent accoutrement. “Too bad the Commonwealth outlawed military embryonic sales. They would have paid premium for this one.” Langer was also a veteran of the Scorpio campaign.

The system alerted Langer to a match in the embryon database. “Well, hello.”

“What is it?”

Langer zoomed in on the matching file. “Our little boy has a brother a system, a half brother anyway. Paternal half-brother, some little stud has been busy.”

Langer pulled up data from the file. “The other donor named hers… Aidan Bronstein.”

Hughes checked the donor record. “This one’s donor didn’t want to leave hers a name. So, we’ll let them share the same last name, this one will be named Adrian.” A program in the administrative computer assigned the names when the donor didn’t, which was about 60% of cases. This prevented Medicos from giving embryons ridiculous monikers like “Harry Butt” or “Amanda Huggenkiss,” although sometimes one slipped through.

“Makes no difference to me,” Langer made a few final entries into the file, and removed the embryon pod from the scanning pad. Hughes took the pod and place it inside a long-term gestational chamber. The system cycled into cryostasis to keep the future colonist stable for transport.

“Where is he going?” Langer asked.

Hughes answered. “We’re sending 2,000 to the Bellwether system on the next hyper-transport,” she told him. “Order from the Sweetwater Consortium.”

Every time Hughes went over the economics in her mind it staggered her. Each embryon was bought from the donor for a thousand credits, give or take, depending on the market that day. Each cost about 100,000 credits to grow to adulthood and transport to a colony, but each would produce, in a lifetime, on average, over a million credits of economic output.

All this was necessary if humanity were to colonize the other quadrants of the galaxy. Even the improved birth rates of the post-Crusade, 41st Century would barely support growth in the Orion Sector. And few humans would give up their homes and families for the forty year journey to the Carina or Cygnus Quadrant, far fewer the sixty years to Perseus Quadrant. Hence, the Pioneer Program.

Today, she would make the Sweetwater consortium six million credits in future income and it had been a relatively slow day. Her bonus this year would pay for a nice vacation cottage in New Havana. And she could sit on the deck and sip ambrosia, and think about her own embryons, on colony-ships bound for distant worlds.

Pioneers: Part 2

2010-03-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

THE COMMONWEALTH - SCORPIO SECTOR - SAN ANDREAS COLONY - NEW ATLANTA - ASTRA-PACIFIC LABS

The girl lay back in the clinic as the probe entered her. She didn’t know what kind of sensory alteration program the clinic used, but it made her feel wonderful; like her loins were immersed in some warm, electric stew. She was only vaguely aware of the presence of the long robotic appendage – slathered in biolubrican – that had entered her; as though it were happening to someone else.

“Extraction will be complete in thirty seconds,” the Medico, Dr. Hughes, told her. She was a pleasant woman in her thirties, but her voice was an unwelcome intrusion into the music program she had been enjoying while the procedure was completed.

“This is my first time,” the girl burbled. She didn’t know why she said it, but the sensory program was making her feel chatty and uninhibited.

“There’s a first time for everybody,” Dr. Hughes said amiably. She watched the monitor closely. On its holographic screen was an enhanced view of the girl’s cervical passage. The probe pressed gently inward and began scanning for the tiny embryon.

The girl began humming a snatch of popular music. Hughes filtered it out. In the adjacent cubicle, she heard the next patient… rather older than hers… moan softly as the probe withdrew from her insides.

A small “ping” came from her machine. The probe had found the embryon. A quick scan showed it intact and healthy. “Got you,” Hughes whispered. Her hands were contained in a pair of sensory gloves, similar to the ones used by asteroid miners for remote mining robots, but far more sensitive. It was very important to extract the embryon intact. First, she sprayed the embryon in bio-sustainment gel. Then, she carefully loosened it from the uterine wall. It didn’t want to go, at first, but a little more gel, and just the slightest increase in pressure convinced it to detach. The probe quickly drew it into its proboscis, and slowly pulled out from inside her.

“That’s it,” Hughes announced. She stood up. “You can rest here until you feel ready to get up. The nursing technician will give you your check and some medication on the way out. You did really good.”

“Mmm,” said the girl. She lay back on the bed, eyes closed, as though lying there for a while seemed like a good idea. It would not be a problem. The clinic was slow today, and there were more than the usual empty beds.

“How long…?” the girl muttered dreamily.

Hughes looked at her. What would she spend her thousand credits on? Clothes? A personal vehicle? A spring break getaway to Bop Beach? The money would go quickly, and she would be back. “Three months, minimum,” Hughes answered, honestly, the injections would see to that. “And a year would be better.”

Pioneers: Part 1

2010-03-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Book 10 is proving to be a real pain in the butt, and I am trying to get through the last edits, but it is so difficult because there are so many characters, and so many languages to keep track up. It's really hard.

In the meantime, I actually dashed off this short story in five parts while getting my brakes serviced. It should provide some amusement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE COMMONWEALTH - SCORPIO SECTOR - SAN ANDREAS COLONY - SUBURBS OF NEW ATLANTA:

“This is the deal,” said the girl. She was sitting on her bed. The boy stood in front of her, and she played with the fastener of his belt. “You make me happy for 30 minutes, then you get to shoot in me. Deal.”

The boy grinned in a well-practiced imitation of sheepishness. “All right.”

The girl quickly stripped down to a bra and panties and lay back with her shoulders propped on some pillows. The boy unceremoniously stripped off his jersey, his shoes, his socks and his jeans, letting them fall on the floor next to the bag with his groundball gear.

He climbed into the bed, knees first, and put himself in a straddling position over her naked body. She was a pale creature, with curly red-brown hair. In his dark eyes and the dusky hue of his skin were traces of his Meso-American ancestry; on a planet 14,000 light years away whose history occupied Chapter 1 of their history texts.

His touch was clumsy, which the girl had expected, and she had to guide him to her pleasure centers; the tips of her breasts, the sensitive zones of her inner thigh, and that spot behind her elbows her cousin had discovered. She didn’t mind his roughness, the thought of being his teacher, of her being the one who would make his motions better for the girls who would follow her, was part of what aroused her about the scene.

Thirty-five minutes after her initial proposition, he was pulling his pants over his muscular brown legs, and she was lying in bed, watching him, and wondering if there was any fruit salad in the food preservation unit on the lower level of the house.

“I gotta go,” he said to her, strapping his laces together.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Thanks.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder and flashed his too-white smile at her. “Yeah, it was good,” he said by way of you’re welcome.

Writing Keeler's big capitalism speech.

2009-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm just praying that when I finish with it, Chapter 10 doesn't read like the climax of an Ayn Rand novel.

Sometimes, things work out

2009-10-15T05:57:00.000-07:00

I was struggling for a place name as I wrote Chapter 9. I left it blank in the first draft with just a ______________ to indicate where the name would go. Then, it just hit me, I can name the place 'Miranda,' which will nicely tie the Shakespearean reference ('The Tempest') to the Firefly reference.

It has come to this

2009-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

When I started writing these things, I had no idea I would ever use the phrase 'Anal Annihilator' in any of these books, let alone nine times in a single chapter. But, there it is.

Re: Stargate-Universe

2009-10-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

So, a handful of human survivors of a massive attack find themselves depending on a busted-up spaceship in a fight for survival. There are tensions between military and civilian personnel, there's a brilliant scientist who can't be trusted, and its all filmed in a stark and gritty style. Gee, where have I seen this before?

Book 10: Chapter One

2009-10-01T09:47:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking of posting Chapter One of Book 10 as a teaser. Any interest?

Book 10 Strange Requests

2009-09-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

I had to ask several people how to say "The Cat in my Pants Is on Fire" in Latin. I finally got an answer. "Fēlēs quae meās brācās incolit conflagrāt"

Trust me, this is *absolutely essential" to the plot in Book 10.

Would Keeler Really Say This?

2009-08-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

"Now, shut your whore mouth and make me a sandwich, woman."

If anyone is still reading this...

2009-08-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not posting for a while. Book 10 is proving very, very difficult book to write. Plus, there's been more than the usual amount of life-stuff going on... work, kids, finances... that's taken me off focus. But I am pouring myself back into the project, and have done some retooling.

The problem was trying to force the story around the Shakespeare plots, which wasn't working very well. I've now pushed most of the Shakespeare into the background... mostly... and restructured the book into more of Shakespeare sandwich. Chapters 1-3 establish the setting and launch the basic plot of the book. Chapters 4-9 are kind of 'stories within the story' with Shakespeare flavoring. Chapters 10 through 12 finish out the story with little reference to Shakespeare at all. Definitely more of a pirate flavor.

I'm Jellin'

2009-05-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while because progress on Book 10 has been pretty slow; mainly because of external life events. I was offered a new job, but then my employer offered me a raise and promotion to stay. So, I stayed, and it's been busy as Hell these last few weeks. Also, on the homefront, an adoption placement fell through. I'm also working on a deal to buy a farm in Michigan. So, there's been much more going on than usual. Also, I was dating for a while, but that kinda didn't work out. :-(

But also, part of the problem was the Shakespeare-meets-Adam-Smith-meets-Long-Dong-Silver matrix of Book 10 just wasn't jelling as well as I thought it would when I started out. I thought the parodies of Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream were just falling flat. Lots of Shakespearean references, of course, but making references to Shakespeare in and of itself was just not funny; like those lame Wayans brothers movies where they think all you have to do to get a laugh is act out a scene from another movie with some slapstick.

I was seriously thinking of abandoning Book 10 and going straight to Book 11, when just this weekend, I got an idea that I thought might tie things together; a Serenity/Firefly homage with Keeler in the role of Mal Reynolds and a rag-tag crew of fighters, with Eddie Roebuck in the place of Shepherd Book and Dr. Skinner in the role of Simon Tam. Most of the other roles will be filled by new characters.

The tavern scene in Chapter 4 really came together when the River Tam character began kicking everybody's ass. I think this just might work.

The End of BSG, and The End of WA

2009-03-23T15:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, I watched The Grand Finally (you read that right) of BSG this weekend, and re-watched it. First of all, it was pretty formulaic for the genre. The "Huge Battle Followed by Epilogue to Explain what happened to the characters" formula was used in Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Probably some other shows, too. And, WA Book 12 will be set up along those lines. There will be a battle. There will be an epiloque, of sorts. The epilogue I've already written.

But I'm not going in for any of that frakkin' hippy "Let's give up our technology, so we can get back to nature, and live in harmony, and that will free us from the cycle of violence." Bull. Crap. Don't *even* get me started on the futility of agriculture 150,000 years ago. Pretty much everyone in the fleet would be dead of disease and starvation within five months. If they give up the technology, if they give up the knowledge, the give up the lesson. The theme of BSG was all about "All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again." And I think, WA is more like, "None of this has ever happened before, everything we learn, we take with us."

So, the survivors of the aforementioned battle in Book 12 are not going to be turning their backs on technology, knowledge, religion or history, but will see them as the building blocks of the next human civilization. Because the hippies are just wrong when they imagine primitive, pre-industrial life as a sort of idyll.

Updates on Book 10

2009-03-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have been working on the "12th Night" and "Macbeth" chapters of Book 10. So far, in the 12th Night chapter, Keeler and Alkema have been bystanders to the action, and I have to integrate them more into the story. The "12th Night" chapter so far follows Shakespeare's original very closely. Whereas the Macbeth chapter is a big departure. I had kind of envisioned it as an Agatha-Christie-type drawing room mystery, Keeler trying to solve the murder of Banquo. It is fun having Keeler play off the language of Shakespeare. And unlike past books, coming up with names for the planet's inhabitants is not hard.

Outline of Book 10

2009-03-05T07:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry this has taken so long. I've had a lot of crap going on. I don't think there are any spoilers here because I kept key plot points deliberately vague. Also, my books tend to change a lot between outline and final form:

Book 10 Outline:

Chapter 01: Two years have passed since the events in Book 09. As Pegasus enters the Eventide System, Alkema gives Keeler a tour of the ship and they discuss the many changes that have taken place.

Chapter 02: The Kariad are met at least, and are found to be interfering with the colonists on Eventide. (A small planet with only ~20 million inhabitants). The Kariad report that the colony of Eventide has a problem of gross social and economic inequalities. Keeler catalogs the devastating impact of Kariad on colonies they have interfered with and makes a wager with the Kariad that if he can fix the social problems of the Eventidians without technological interference, the Kariad must stop interfering with human colonies.

Chapter 03: Keeler secures a sailing ship with the purpose of conducting trade with the inhabitants. He intends to secure food and other supplies for Pegasus by trading for them, while simultaneously learning about the planet’s culture in order to solve the problems and win his wager. Keeler also makes an enemy in the form of the Mariner Captain Othello, who vows to kill him. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.)

Chapter 04: Keeler arrives at the island of Pyramus. They try to market their wares but to no success. The planet’s economy is based on “Anything Boxes” controlled by 13 Royal families that produce most any product the public needs. Outside the exchange of Anything Box-produced good, there is very little trade on the island. To try and endear himself to the Duke of Pyramus, Keeler attends a play. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

Chapter 05: Keeler and crew arrive at the Island of Dawn Mark, where they encounter an insane young prince who is suicidal over the death of his father and usurpation of his father’s throne. They arrange to get him some therapy. Meanwhile, they attempt to fix their commercial misfortunes by selling rare artifacts from other colonies. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s Hamlet.)

Chapter 06: Unexpectedly, the crew’s accidental marketing of certain Auroran sex aids has created a sort of “Tulip Mania,” and the crew finds itself suddenly and unexpectedly wealthy. But the dispersal of these artifacts is causing cultural disruption, and Keeler finds that Captain Othello has put a price on his head. Hiding in a cave, he discovers a valuable resource. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.)

Chapter 07: Fleeing from Captain Othello’s Fleet, Keeler arrives at the island of New Altair, the smallest of the thirteen islands. The Duke of Altair agrees to exchange his entire island for one copy of a particularly rare artifact. Keeler agrees. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s The Tempest.)

Chapter 08: Keeler enacts massive economic reforms on the island of New Altair. Alkem figures out how the Altairian Anything Box works.

Chapter 09: The sudden prosperity of the island of New Altair, coupled with its lack of a Royal Leader attracts an invasion fleet led by Keeler’s Arch-Rival, Captain Othello. They prepare to conquer the island as Keeler organizes a resistance among the farmers and peasants. (This will be a partial parody of Wm. Shakespeare’s Henry V.)

Chapter 10: Loose ends are tied up, and the stage is set for Pegasus’s next journey.

Keelernomics

2009-02-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

The last week was pretty much lost because of interviews and business trips, but it gave me a lot of time to think about writing, which is far less productive than actual writing. But it did reveal a solution to my dilemma about how to resolve the plot at the end of Book 10.

I have had to think a lot about the economics of Eventide in order for the story to be plausible. I had to wrestle with some pretty dense questions:

How does trade work on a planet where people can get whatever they need out of "Magical Boxes?" Would there even be commerce under such a system? Answer: There would still be some kind of trade regime. People would still exchange materials produced outside the anything boxes, and those who possessed the anything boxes would still trade with others in distant islands who had other anything boxes.
What could people in a starship possible trade with people with an Elizabethan level of technology? Especially since I establish early on that Pegasus is strapped for resources as it is. The ship has to attempt to trade in high-value finished goods and exchange these for raw materials like food and cloth. These two items are ill-fitted to the trade regime since both food and cloth can be produced by the anything boxes.

So, anyway, I've finally got the economics worked out in my head. And as soon as I finish these expense reports, I should be able to get back to serious writing. PEACE

First lines of Book 10

2009-01-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

"Naked, wet, and furious, Commander William Keeler slapped the COM panel on the wall outside his hygiene pod."

(I'm actually well into chapters 1,2, and 3 but just composed those first lines over the weekend. Makes a nice mise-en-scene to set the tone for the next book.)

Book 10, figuring out the science

2009-01-14T09:02:00.001-08:00

As I am almost sure I have writed earlier, Book 10, Eventide, combines economic themes with homages to Shakespeare. I am actually think the book might be constructed as a series of short stories that combine to make an arc, and there might ... *might* ... be some Chuck Dickens and Jane Austen thrown in for good measure.

The key plot device in Book 10 is the Anything Box, which I conceive as a kind of device that rearranges matter into objects based on a pre-defined template. Those who control the anything boxes control the planet's economy. And I have been thinking about the implications of this. (Also, how big is an Anything Box and what does it look like?)

As I have imagined this planet's society... 22,000,000 million inhabitants spread across an archipelago of 13,000 islands... I am orienting the story toward the control exercised by those who control the anything boxes. Some Ayn Rand themes - along the lines of "Anthem" -- are under consideration.

I can't help but think it topical. With the Government preparing to spend trillions of dollars on "stimulus" and states lining up with their arms wide open our government is trying to make itself into an anything box.

Initializing Book 10 Writing Mode

2009-01-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

One of the things that happens in Book 10 is the Kariad are revealed.

I had originally envisioned the Kariad as renegade Aurelians, who had rejected their culture’s goal of subjugating and exterminating humanity and who were instead trying to help. Unfortunately, their well-intentioned interventions invariably fail.

I am thinking about decoupling the Kariad from the Aurelians, and portraying them more in the manner of a Star Trek: TOS type of super-powerful alien intelligence (“You are to us, as an amoeba is to you,” that sort of thing.)

We’ll see where it goes.

I also have to think of a funky way for them to talk.

Aside from that, Book 10 is going to be a mélange of economics, Shakespeare, and pornography. I know those are the key plot elements, but the actual plot is still taking shape. It may end up sort of like Book 5, where there isn’t really a plot, just a lot of stuff that happens.

It's Done, It's Up, I'm Gonna Play Some Halo

2009-01-03T11:02:00.000-08:00

Worlds Apart Book 09 is on-line now. For some reason, the Word version opens in "View Markup" mode" so you'll have to close that if you download the Word version. And, naturally, it'll be lodid with speling errurs and typos because I don't have a person to double-check those. But I think it's a pretty good read, and there's parts that made me LOL when I did the last read-through, so I hope you like it.

Pages - 209
Words - 80,759
Characters (no spaces) - 387,494
Characters (with spaces) - 467,906
Paragraphs - 2,795
Lines - 7,329

Do you want it fast, or do you want it good?

2009-01-02T06:42:00.001-08:00

I wanted to have Book 09 posted yesterday. The good news is, I finished writing it yesterday. I went to bed at 2:00 am New Year's Day thinking I was finished, woke up a few hours later and realized I still had three loose ends to tie up.

Eliza Change, Matt Driver, and Kyle Atlantic had to have a conversation at the end to book end their conversation at the beginning.
There were two new characters who had to have their fates settled.

So, instead of putting the book together New Year's Day, I spent New Year's Day writing about four new pages to wrap that stuff up, and then re-writing and cleaning up the last chapter (which also involved coming up with cat-like things to for Queequeg to say.) Also, designing cover art, (which looks really cool, IMHO).

So, today I am putting the book together. I am proofreading and editing as I go, and I find myself rewriting or correcting about one in every twelve sentences. So, I expect to finish this weekend, but I am disappointed in myself for not finishing it by the end of 2008.

You guys are gonna hate this

2008-12-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

Just finishing up. I hope to post Book 09 on New Year's Day, and it should be reasonably possible I can do that.

The thing is, as I write and edit, I realize there are several chapters that just consist of people talking. I hope that doesn't turn out boring, but I worry.

Musings

2008-12-11T04:19:00.000-08:00

I am working on editing the Final Draft of Book 09, even though there are still some fair-sized chunks that haven't been written yet. I am up to Chapter Six, which I am fairly dis-satisfied with. The pacing is execrable, and the plot advancement that comes out of that chapter is embarassingly ham-handed. Worse, it follows Chapter Five which I was very pleased with.

Also, since Book 09 has a sort of built-in countdown clock element to it, timing is everything. And now I discover my timelines aren't matching up. Fixing it should be straightforward enough, and will actually smooth out some other plot elements that seemed a bit rushed the first time. Nevertheless, a real pain in the keister.

About the character naming convention, for most of the minor characters, I am using the names of teams from minor Canadian Hockey Leagues; at least for the ones that are part of the crew. I am using different naming conventions for the people from the planet.

Unintentional Themes of Book 09

2008-12-03T04:25:00.001-08:00

As I reread and edit the finished chapters, I am struck by a totally unintended theme that's emerging. Both Bill Keeler and Trajan Lear... separately and in their own way... confess to loneliness and a longing for intimacy. I hadn't even realized I was exploring that idea in the book, it just sort of emerged out of each character responding to his situation.

Also, it's an interesting dual-perspective. Keeler is an older man, remorseful over what he has lost. Trajan Lear is a younger man, fearful over what he thinks he will never have.

I better get away from this human condition crap, or I might be mistaken for a serious writer.

All the Fixes Come at the end

2008-11-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am writing the last two chapter in Book 09. (Not counting the actual last chapter, which is more of an epilogue, as it was in the previous books). And it's time to clean up all the little errors that crept into the draft.

Dave Alkema can not simultaneously be with a landing party and on the main bridge at the same time.
All these Specialists and Warfighters and Technicians who were given placeholder names like Joe-Bob and Coldbeer will have to be given real names. (Except maybe Coldbeer), and maybe resurrect some names from past books for continuity, like Billy Keane and Herrald. (Who was named after a guy on my freshman wrestling team in high school FWIW).
The villain is dispatched rather unceremoniously at the end of chapter 14. The reader may be unsatisfied unless they see her suffer.

Just tying up those loose ends and whatall.

Slow Going

2008-11-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

Due to a dramatic amount of work both professional and person, progress has been slow. The end of the year timeframe is looking doubtful for Book 09. Just when I was firing on all cylinders like a lean, mean writing machine... major end-of-the-year projects got dumped in my lap.

I am very blessed to have a good professional gig that leaves me time to write, normally. I've talked to other writers who tell me so.

Writing Through a Bad Election Season

2008-10-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

This election has always been 'Alien-vs-Predator' to me: No matter who wins, we lose. I find I've been increasingly spending time with Keeler and the crew as a form of escape from this depressing election season.

New Stuff

2008-09-01T19:57:00.001-07:00

I added some (poorly drawn) ships at the primary website. Go to the Ships page, and then you can click on each of the ship designations for more information. Including the first ever side view of an Aves. I realize I now have to retcon any earlier scene where the Aves was exited on a planet's surface through the side hatch. It's too far up off the ground. The logical place to exit would be under the forward section.

This is a first

2008-08-28T04:59:00.001-07:00

Last night, I had a dream based around Worlds Apart. I was with Trajan Lear on Gethsemane. We were fishing. Oddly, enough.

Words Written Backwards

2008-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, still dutifully chugging away at Book 09, although there has been so much going on personally and professionally lately, I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.

This morning, I wrote this para, which comes in Chapter 13 of Book 09.

David Alkema and Technical Specialist Diamondback lugged a very heavy device into the center of the Control Room. The squat, silvery cylinder was a data module, a miniature version of Pegasus’s braincore, a matrix capable of storing the amount of data generated by one reasonably competent civilization in 500 years. (Insert joke here about the device carrying some multiple of 500 years worth of data generated by the average human civilization.)

That last line is too snarky, I think, to make the final cut. But I notice my narrative has been bumping the fourth wall quite a bit in Book 09. I have to watch that. Probably, it's a trick to try and fake humor when I'm not in a good mood or frame of mind to write something that's actually funny.

Big Wheels Turning

2008-07-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

After losing some time to work and other real-life related projects, things are once again humming on Book 09. This is going so much more smoothly than Book 08. Book 08 involved a whole lot of rip-it-up, start-again, but Book 09 is just so straightforward:

1. Here's the task.
2. Here's how they carry out the task.
3. Here's a complication.
4. Here's how they deal with the complication.

One thing that has shifted is I originally thought Book 09 was going to be a Trajan Lear book, with him as the major focus of one of the story-lines. But poor Trajan is stranded in a sandstorm, and the one calling the shots is Anaconda Taurus-Rook. Now, she is the central character of the main storyline. Good for her.

Creep, Spaceships, and Long Range Planning

2008-07-02T06:34:00.001-07:00

Book 09 is going to be at least 15 Chapters instead of the original 12. Why? Because I think one of the few things I do quite well (based on emails) is getting into the color and texture of the different worlds Pegasus visits. As I was writing some of the scenes in Book 09, it just nagged at me that there was more going on and I was short-changing the story by not getting deeper into it. So, the new chapters will deal more with the challenges the crew faces in evacuating a planet, in providing more color and texture about life on that planet, and more time to explore Keeler's past-life on Sapphire, which is the other part of the story.

As for ships, I'll be re-working the ships page on the main website to add new designs and perspectives.

Finally, I've had an idea of how Book 12 will wrap up the series for years, and now I'm starting to question it. The resolution would have had quite a bit to do with Tarmigans, their origin, and their relationship to humanity. Now, I'm tempted to alter the focus of the story-line. Partly, it's a reaction to all the anti-war propaganda that permeates our culture. Even to the point where those who recognize the occasional necessity of a just war will defensively bleat that "No one is actually pro-war." Out of sheer contrariness, I am tempted to put pro-war themes into Book 12. Not 'War is awesome,' or anything, but more in the spirit of 'sometimes war works.' Put the characters in a position where they can choose between a long, drawn-out struggle or a quick decisive battle, let them argue the merits and come out on the side of the decisive battle. It's an idea that is seldom explored in literature, and I like to do things differently.

Another Project Finished

2008-06-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

This comic strip I was writing for another blog was only taking up 2 or 3 hours a week of my time, but I am relieved to be finished with it for now any way, and have some time to devote to other projects.

Bill Keeler's Father

2008-06-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

Bill Keeler's father will make a cameo in Book 09. (I just decided this yesterday. It was one of those ideas that came out of nowhere but was too good to pass on.) This is who I picture when I imagine Arthur Emerson Keeler III.

Re-Imagining That Which Should Not Have Been Imagined in the First Place

2008-06-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

Don't sweat it. I'm writing. This is just something I've been thinking about during one of my long commutes.

Space 1999, I remember it well. Also, I own the DVD's to the first season. Anyway, the idea of bringing back Space 1999 is an interesting thought experiment, bringing back a sci-fi series essentially set eight years in the past.

Could it be done? Well, one way is to ask the audience to imagine an alternative history in which we did not abandon the moon after 1972, but went on to build a permanent base in 1979, and technologies to let us reach it. That's asking a lot of an audience, I know. But, hold on. And what if instead of blowing the moon out of Earth orbit with nuclear waste (Yeah, Right), there was some sort of (wormhole?) experiment being conducted on the moon that resulted in the moon being able to jump across time and space. It could work.

This and That, Baby

2008-06-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

The lack of recent posting is a consequence of intensity in my day job, the one that I have been advised on numerous occasions never to quit, the one that is sufficiently lucrative that it allows me to raise a couple of teenagers in a part of the country with the cost of living is ridiculous, while simultaneously giving me enough free time to write. Also, I've been doing the ridiculous amount of paperwork required to initiate adopting another teenager out of foster care. So, I haven't done much with Book 9 lately.

Except I did doodle out the ship above, the Fast Attack Corvette Fighting Mongoose. It shows up in Book 11. Yeah, it looks like what would issue if Serenity knocked up the Planet Express ship, but it works for me. It's a Sapphirean design, hence the big flashy tailfins.

Finally, last night, I watched the final of BSG. They went for the cliche. I can't promise you much, but I can promise when Pegasus reaches Earth, it's not going to be a sterile radioactive wasteland. Keeler will not fall to his knees saying "You blew it! The Allbeing Damn You All to Perdition." No, the resolution of Pegasus's journey will be a lot of things, but it won't be a science fiction cliche.

Writing is Rewriting

2008-05-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

Back to re-writing the early chapters of Book 09, taking them from first draft to second draft stage. It's a good way to stay productive when I'm not feeling inspired.

And it isn't that I'm not feeling inspired, my mind is just wandering forward and filling in a lot of the background details on, for example, certain alien races and the technology they will use 'round about Book 11.

Another thing that occurred to me is that in Book 11, Pegasus is going to require an extensive refit and overhaul, including engine upgrades. I did not, in my original imagining of the ship, take into account the need for engine replacement. An engine refit on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier takes two years and involves cutting the hull open. I imagine the same process would be necessary on Pegasus. I could edit retroactively and say that the ship was designed all along for easy engine swap-out, or I could make the upgrades take the form of modular add-ons to the existing design, but that seems like cheating.

I have a long time to worry about that, though.

In the mean-time, I keep pushing forward.

"Cake or Death" Now online

2008-04-29T04:19:00.000-07:00

The short story (part III of Book 09) is now online. This is the link. I'm not totally satisfied with it, but it's okay.

The Integrated Book 09 including all three parts, and some additional editing over the first posting is also on-line. The pdf version works fine. But the Word/rtf version does not want to ftp for some reason. I do not know why, but I will troubleshoot it tonight and hopefully get everything working.

Done with Book Eight Part III

2008-04-28T05:43:00.001-07:00

Teh short story "Cake or Death" is finished and I'll post it tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm reintegrating all of Book 08 into a single volume, and taking the opportunity for some editorial clean-up. Re-reading it, there are several stretches of Johnny Rook's dialog where he does not sound like Johnny Rook at all. And I'm doing editorial clean-up here and there.

Then, I can plunge back into Book 09. I'll probably start working through the re-writes of Chapters one through four. I have been trying to find a better naming convention for the inhabitants of Gethsemane. I try to use some sort of theme with the naming of colonial characters but I haven't hit on one yet for this book.

Last Part of Hellfire Wrapping Up, Gethsemane Stuck On Stupid

2008-04-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Hellfire Part III should be posted in about a week or ten days. It's in clean-up right now, and it's the shortest Worlds-Apart Story Yet at around 12 pages. That finished, a combined Book 09 should be posted soon after. This also might be a good opportunity to fix the 50 or 60,000 typos and errors on the WA Main Site.

Then, I can get back to Gethsemane, where I'm still stuck with what happened to Redfire that he can't remember. While trying to figure that out (during an otherwise lovely run in the woods last night)... I got sidetracked and ended up mentally filling in some back-story to some stuff that comes in later ... around Book 11 or so. And it relates (tangentially) to Queequeg.

Before and during the Age of the Commonwealth, scientists were doing these experiments with raising the intelligence and ability to communicate of animals. In doing so, they sometimes tapped into latent abilities by accident... for example, the telepathic abilities of dolphins, and their uncanny ability to navigate in hyperspace. Enhanced dogs were found to be excellent in a number of combat roles and became important adjuncts to military operations. (And, of course, the War Rats Queequeg encountered were also part of that experimentation.) Enhanced apes were well-suited to perform a number of menial tasks in mining, manufacturing, and farming. And finally, cats, originally enhanced for companionship, were found to have a proclivity for using technology.

(It also brings up a parallel to the structure of Aurelian society, with each of four species equating to an Aurelian caste. Apes-Cups (Menial labor), Dogs-Swords (warfare), Dolphins - Pentacles (Esoteric capabilities) and Cats-Wands (Technology). )

Some scientists --- PETA types, maybe --- wanted to push the capabilities of animals further. They wanted to see if enhanced animals could create unique societies, civilizations even. They finally succeeded in creating a unique species of feline that not only had human-level intelligence, but walked upright, had opposable thumbs... all the gifts natural selection bequeathed to humanity.

They created 12 original specimens, then departed in a ship, the Astasia, for a remote planet in the Cygnus Quadrant. But, the scientists had underestimated the cunning of the felines, who took over the ship, murdered the scientists, and went off on a journey of their own.

Post #85

2008-04-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hellfire Part 3 is nearing the finish-line. I expect to have it out this month. It's working out well as a claustrophobic, basically two-character zombie story. I have to road-trip this weekend, and sitting in a hotel can be a very creative time.

As Spring-like weather sort of returns, I've begun running again, which gives me time to think about where the story is going. My mind has been skipping ahead to Book 10 (even though I try to focus on Book 09 and getting Redfire off the alien spacecraft), and how some of the big changes that will happen to Pegasus will play out, including a change in the command structure. There's some potential to play with character of General Kitaen, and make him more of a cult-leader figure. There are issues of how to integrate thousands of refugees into Pegasus's crew. I rewatched Titan AE the other night, and was captivated by the scene on the Gaol planet. I might try to work in some elements of that.

It's kind of hard to discuss what's going on in my mind without giving too much away, but one of the things about Book 10 that will be different is that whereas a typical WA Book only covers a few days of history, the events in Book 10 will be spread out over perhaps a year. That year will be spent with the crew visiting a single planet.

But before I can get to that, I have to get Keeler and Alkema out of the hole they're stuck in in Hellfire 03, then I have to get Redfire off the alien ship in Gethsemane, then the crew has to fight a costly battle with trans-dimensional space demons (or maybe one great big giant space demon). Then, I can start on Book 10.

Post #84

2008-03-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from Gethsemane to work on the long-awaited third part of Hellfire. I've cleaned out some of the pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo to make it back into the straight-up zombie story I wanted to do originally.

Post #82

2008-03-18T04:38:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the part of Book 09 that deals with what really happened to Phil Redfire and Halo Jordan in Book 06. I had only envisioned it as a straightforward story of capture and escape. But then I realized, that would be boring. So, I struggled with how to make it more interesting. So, it's still a story of capture and escape, but with some twists.

The hardest part was figuring out a plausible way for them to escape. I didn't want their alien captors to be dumb. I didn't want their escape to be implausible. I found a way that I think works, it has a basis in technology that was established in previous books. But, anyway, that opened up another can of worms. Once they get out of the cage, then, what happens? I couldn't just have them find weapons lying around all over like in Halo. Like I said, aliens ... not supposed to be dumb.

Redfire and Jordan were being held captive with an Aurelian. That was one of the ideas that had been kicking around, and when I finally figured out how they escape, it opened up another line of narrative. Who is this Aurelian? What is his back-story? (Short Answer: His name is Corvus, He is an Ace of Wands, he has lived his entire life on the megasphere but he is descended from colonists of the planet Park Ji-Yeon that was conquered by the Aurelians, and he is fanatically devoted to the Aurelian cause.) But it also opens up this intrigue of whether Jordan and Redfire are being held on an alien ship, or an Aurelian ship and Corvus is a plant to gain their trust. At this point, that idea is a door that just opened up, and I don't know if it leads to a dead end, or something I can use.

Post #81

2008-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Too Early to say for certain, but Book 09 might expand from 12 to 14 chapters. Mainly because having Keeler back in New Cleveland and interacting with characters from his past is proving to be a lot of fun, and I might need more space to explore the possibilities. I've kicked around the idea of doing a Sapphire-based book when the Pegasus journey is complete, and I'm getting a little chance to explore the planet's culture through the chapters in this book dealing with Keeler's life on his home planet.

There's also subtextual things that I know about... for example, that Keeler's wife was having an affair at the time she was killed, that the Aurelians had infiltrated Republic's government ... that I use in my mind to shape how the characters act and what's going on in the world around them, and I debate whether I want to state any of that explicitly in the story or keep it as sub-text. I honestly don't know how those will play out, and I'm kinda curious to see what happens with them.

Post #80

2008-02-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

In the last 48 hours, Commander Keeler has grown a family. He has a brother named Thomas (Not guaranteed to stay with that name) and a Sister named Bettilu. He also has a saucy housemaid whose tart tongue puts him in his place. Jeez, this is turning into an eighties sitcom. Hmmm, maybe that should be the dynamic for the Keeler-background story. Eighties sitcom. Maybe he should adopt a couple precocious tots from the ghetto or something. On the other hand, Sapphire has no ghettoes. A couple precocious Borealan beast-herders then.

Post # 79

2008-02-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not posting the last couple of weeks. I had a wicked case of the flu last week. I picked up work on Book 09 and it's been proceeding in an unremarkable, workmanlike manner. Nine books in, I'm finally getting the hang of this.

I got an idea for a short story within the Worlds-Apart universe to be called "Omega Centauri." I don't know when I'll get to it, because I still have to finish "Cake or Death," but it's got an intriguing premise I can't wait to get to, and it is a sequel, of sorts, to "The Last Two People on Electra IV."

If you recall, Dr. Skinner has determined that when a Sapphirean or a Republicker mates with a human from another planet, the Sapphirean/Republicker genetic code dominates and over-writes the other person's DNA. It occurred to me that, many generations hence, there might be "Pureblood" humans who don't want the Sapphirean/Republicker DNA. Eventually, they may evolve into two distinct races... Perseids (those who are genetically Sapphirean/Republicker) and Purebloods. And the story would involve Electroids (the human-machine hybrids of Electra IV) acting as Go-Betweens/Mediators in an inter-stellar Perseid-Pureblood war.

Post #78

2008-02-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

One of the things an early editor taught me was to confine passages in the book to a single point of view (POV). Since then, I've made a conscious effort to try to keep each story thread in a particular WA book to a single character's perspective. Book 09 has two major story threads, and two and a half minor story threads.

One main story thread was always going to be Keeler's, and it still is. We're going to delve into Keeler's background, and his life on Sapphire prior to becoming the commander of Pegasus. Logically, that story needs to be from his perspective. There is a minor story attached to Keeler's story that will be told from Redfire's perspective, because he'll finally find out what happened to him back in Book 06.

The other main story I originally conceived as a Trajan Lear story, continuing the 'Hero's Journey' narrative that I totally bumbled into with the Trajan Lear character. In recent days, the story began shaping up differently than I had planned. So, now, that storyline is going to be told from the POV of Anaconda Taurus Rook. I had never envisioned her as a major character when I conceived the Worlds Apart story arc. I didn't anticipate using her again beyond her Vasquez/Ana Lucia turn in Book 01. But then, she married Johnny Rook and had his kid, which came as a surprise to all of us. The way the second story has evolved in Book 09, she is the natural character to tell it from. Although part of that story will be Trajan Lear's perspective and another part (the half-story) will be Max Jordan.

Confused? Hopefully you won't be.

OK Maybe Just a Little

2008-01-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

Last week, I wrote about how Gethsemane does not want to be a spiritual book. But, yesterday, I wrote a three-page sequence where Keeler monologues with God in the form of prayer. Because it's Keeler, it's a riff for the most part, whose centerpiece is a warped rendition of the 23rd Psalm. (Partly based on the LOLCat Bible version, but not so much.) So, even though Gethsemane is not going to have a spiritual theme to it, part of the story development is Keeler wrestling with his personal lack of religious consciousness.

Notes on the Writing

2008-01-25T04:19:00.000-08:00

Couple of notes on this week's Book 09 writing. First, I've been kind of concerned that what Keeler decides to do in Chapter 01 doesn't make any sense and is quite out of character for him; i.e. volunteering for what could be, as far as he knows, a suicide mission. My hesitation over why he would do this was inhibiting my writing because I was wondering what was motivating him, and then it smacked me right in the face why he was doing it. And it's interesting because the character knew all along why he was doing it, but it took the idiot author a while to figure it out.

Also, when I first envisioned Book 09 way, way back when outlined the original ten books of WA, I had it in mind that it was going to be a really spiritual book. As the outline has evolved into the story, it's clear that, like a stubborn child, Book 09 doesn't want to be about spirituality. Maybe it's because I think I made my points on religion back in Book 07. But Book 09 just wants to be an adventure tale with a big shoot 'em up at the end. And the mushy bits in the middle want to be less mushy and more hard-headed, in the one place, and less romantic in the other. So, even though all of the books have turned out differently than I first imagined, Book 09 is the one that's just out to be as different from the first idea as possible.

Minor note on characters. There's a minor character in chapter one who was pretty bland, until I just pictured him as Bill Cosby. Then, it all came together. I may have to give him a bigger part.

A tantalizing snippet of dialogue from Book 09

2008-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

“You mean, you want me to fly a Nemesis through the flaming debris of a destroyed planet and outmaneuver an army of space demons to detonate an anti-matter hyper-missile on its target.”

“Unh-Huh.”

“Neat.”

Book Nine Spoilers

2008-01-11T06:01:00.000-08:00

So, things were a little slow yesterday, and so I wrote about five pages of Book 9 (bringing us to about 18 of 120-140 pp) and then started thinking about where I was going with the plot.

Sometimes, you have a set-up in mind in your head, and then you realize, it just isn't going to work. The McGuffin in Book 09 is that because children can't pass through the Heaven's Gate that the Gethsemanens have built to escape the doomed planet, their children have been left abandoned to fend for themselves. One storyline in the book was the effort of the crew to evacuate said children from the doomed planet.

So, yesterday, I'm asking myself, "1. How would that work, as a practical matter? 2. How can I make the rescue interesting and not some cliched Sally-Struthers 'save the children' infomercial?"

My original thought was that the children would have been gathered into one big concentration camp. But then I questioned why a people faced with annihilation would have put together the effort. Besides, having all the kids in one place made the plot a bit facile.

So, I thought the kids are not only abandoned, but scattered around the planet greatly complicating the rescue effort. I thought about how the kids would react to the hope of rescue, and how they would behave after being abandoned. I think they would be somewhat feral. This also complicates the rescue effort.

That's when I got the inspiration. The only way to gather and rescue those children is to stun them first with pulse rifles.

Well, so much for Sally Struthers.

So, now, much of the rising action of the book will involve Marines running around on a planet shooting children with frickin' laser beams. (FYI: Anaconda (Taurus) Rook will be in charge of the evacuation.)

And that, I think, will be pretty cool.

Meet Hardcandy Banks

2007-12-30T08:08:00.001-08:00

Name: Hardcandy Banks

Rank: Lieutenant Scientist

Assignment: Science Core, Specialist in High Energy Physics with a sub-discipline in Planetology.

History: Born in the town of Baretta in the olive and wine country of Sapphire's Panrovia province. She was named for her grandmother, a genetic-meddler in the development of new strains of olives who moonlighted as an exotic dancer.

HCB was chosen for the Odyssey Project while completing her High Degree in High Energy Physics at Sapphire's University at New Tenochtitlan. She's currently single, and looking to settle down and make babies with a decent man. In the past has dated Blade Toto, but found him lacking.

Why: Worlds-Apart needed more hot chicks.

The Rule of Threes

2007-12-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

In Book 3, Pegasus got walloped. In Book 6, Pegasus got even more beat up. In Book 9, Pegasus will receive the most serious beating of her life. I was drafting some parts of the last chapter in which David Alkema delivers to Keeler a damage report.

Still need to work out a naming convention for the characters from the planet Gethsemane. I also need more insight into Keeler's past history, which plays a major part in the story. I'm gonna use a lot of imagery from the Book of Revelation, and maybe even work in some Left Behind parody type stuff.

Serializing Book Nine

2007-12-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

Serializing Book Nine... putting out one chapter a month for 12 months ... is something I am giving thought to. The main reason not to is so often I get an idea later in the book of how to do something better earlier in the book, and then I have to backtrack. It's easy to do that when it comes out as a finished product, but if I'm locked into a serial structure before it's finished... that's risk.

I'm working the chapter-by-chapter outline. We'll see how safe I feel when the outline is done.

Read it and Weep

2007-12-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

B8P2 is now online

Snows

2007-12-05T16:05:00.000-08:00

I has them.

Editing B8P2

2007-12-05T07:16:00.000-08:00

Some stuff that's been cut out in the editing...

The character based on Rousseau from 'Lost' --- gone. Just took up space and added nothing to the story.
The "Spear and Magic Helmet" reference. It was just too forced.
The "Christmas Carol" scene with Keeler has been truncated, and made slightly less silly.
Several chunks of exposition. This was hard, because it would have explained and foreshadowed things that are going on back with the part of the crew that left to serve on Lexington Keeler, but the problem was, people were telling these things to Specialist Atlantic, and so it required him to make more inquiries, and I realized his character is too danged self-absorbed to make those kinds of inquiries.

Oh, and if a certain character reminds you of Number Six from BSG, that's intentional.

How it's going

2007-12-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Pretty well. Re-wrote the second "act" (for lack of a better word) of B8 P2. Moved the first flashback into the first act, which smoothes out the story a little bit, but I had to add a new flashback to the second act which wrecks the old hot-cold-hot-cold motif :-( but adds just a hint of detail to the character of Specialist Atlantic, and since he needs all the help he can get, so much the better.

Why This Is Taking So Long

2007-11-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

Over the holiday weekend, I did some major surgery on B8P2, moved some sections around, excised some others. I think it makes the pace a little more rational, and reduces the phenomenon of characters jumping in and out of the story, which I thought was getting too distracting. The story is more linear now, although it was hard to make some of the pieces fit, and I think the seams still show from where difference parts of the story were previously. I am optimistic it's on the right track now.

Restructuring and the Hot-Cold Motif

2007-11-21T04:25:00.001-08:00

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday, too much to do at work, also had to go to the MVA to register the purple car I bought for my son over the weekend. But I did *think* about writing, and worked out a couple of things in my head.

- The nature of 'the island' in B8P2 will become clearer in Book 9. Book 9 - Gethsemane - is even more metaphysical than Book 7, and I expect to begin chapter-by-chapter outlines next month. Unlike Book 8, it will not break easily into parts, so I'm working out whether to wait the full year it will take to write the thing, or put it out in three or four parts throughout the year.

- The addition of the 'Winter' flashback threw off the pacing in B8P2 in a big way. There's going to have to be considerable structural re-work now. But what's neat is that, without realizing it, I had worked in a hot-cold-hot-cold motif in Atlantic's flashbacks. When he flashes back to EdenWorld, he's remembering a hot setting, then he flashes to Winter and its a cold setting. Aurora - hot. Chapultepec - cold. Yronwode - hot. The only one that doesn't fit is ... well, the one I previously described as the most juvenile thing I've ever written. Kind of blows the motif, but I'm leaving it in. I may even post it as an entry here.

Back to the mines.

The Joy of the Home Stretch

2007-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Right now, WA B8 P2 is 40pp of story in a 60pp. Editing is my favorite part of the process. Everything is there, everything has been created, it just needs to be fixed.

Except when stuff needs to be created.

I structured the story with Specialist Atlantic flashing back to his role in other missions, other stories. This was my way of looking at past events from a new perspective. He has flashbacks to EdenWorld, Aurora, and Yronwode. There's also a thread through these memories concerning his crush on Specialist Brainiacsdaughter. In order to better develop both these themes, I decided this morning to add a flashback to Winter. Now, I gotta look back and get some character names that I forgot about a long time ago.

Also, Atlantic has kind of become a Forrest Gump character on the basis of his proximity to events that shaped the overall Worlds Apart arc.

I Woke Up This Morning...

2007-11-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

... and immediately re-wrote a major exposition point in Book 08 Part 2. The change amounted to half a page, and it's all in the exposition, but it's a big shift. Previously, the explanation for the collapse of Fallon's civilization had been internal, and based on a fanatical environmental movement that forced a move away from industry and technology. The new explanation blames the collapse directly on involvement from the Kariad.

My concept of Kariad was of a powerful alien race with benign intentions that manages to screw up every human civilization they touch. (Read into that whatever commentary you want.)

Anyway, I'm in the last four or five pages of the story. With a little bit of luck, I can adhere to a Thanksgiving timeframe for delivery.

Hello, Mr. Dolby

2007-11-12T11:37:00.001-08:00

Just changed a character's name. Mr. Panzetti is now Mr. Dolby, because I always had Thomas Dolby in mind when I created him anyway. Actually, he's kind of a cross between Thomas Dolby and The Tenth Doctor.

Some notes on the character. None of this is in the story, but this is the background. Dolby was a stowaway on the Pathfinder Ship Olympic. Olympic was never heard from again after departing the Sapphire/Republic systems. At some point, Olympic passed through the Fallon system, and Dolby left, or was forced to leave the ship, taking an Accipiter that crashed on the island where the crew of the Aves Leo. He was captured by agents of The Empire State and held in a research facility on the island. Eventually, he escaped and lived on the planet for many years as a fugitive before the collapse of the planetary civilization. At which point, he led a group of refugees back to the island in a stolen submarine ("One of Our Submarines") As a result of previous time-travel (owing to the Pathfinder Ship Olympic being "unstuck in time"), he knows that the refugees from Hellfire will eventually arrive at Fallon and help rebuild the planet's civilization.

But, in the story, he just appears as a weird guy who tortures Specialist Atlantic for no readily apparent reason. OK, there is a reason, but that reason *is* actually in the story, so I can't spill it here.

Maybe there is a use for Spam

2007-11-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe someday I'll write a book in which all of the people on the colony planet have the phony names that appear next to the To: in spam for artificial hard-on products.

Like today: Madhur Hopkins

~10 pp to go on Book 08 Part 2

2007-11-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

The story is approaching it's anti-climax and wrap-up. The story doesn't have a big climax, or a big twist, or anything like that. It's pretty much shaping up as the dim-witted Lost-Lord of the Flies - Jurassic Park - The Prisoner- Every Island Story Cliche I could think of parody I had envisioned it would be. It works as kind of the dessert to the meal that was Book 08, which was one of the stronger books, plotwise.

In about 10 pages, I should have it pretty well wrapped. One of the things I wanted to do with it thematically was see how the major characters ... like Keeler, like Alkema, like Change, like Lear ... look from the perspective of a minor character. When I started writing, the minor characters I chose for this story ... Atlantic, Brainiacsdaughter, Savagewood, Herrald, and Aramburuzubala ... were ciphers. As the story progressed, it became more necessary to flesh them out... especially Atlantic. Now, when I re-write the story, I have to make it a point to emphasize those personalities and quirks of behavior.

Book 08 Part II: Falldown

2007-10-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

Still working through the Final Draft of Book 08 part 2, and I came to this line:

Insert vivid erotic dream about Specialist Brainiacsdaughter.

Got your attention now, I bet.

Still working on Book 08 Part 2

2007-10-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm at about page 50. I'm concerned that this is shaping up to be another story like "Independence," without a plot so much as a series of things that happen. Maybe on the next pass-through I can make it more the story I wanted it to be. I wish the plot were stronger.

On the plus side, I've just written a passage involving Trajan Lear that is by far the most juvenile thing I've ever put into a WA story. I'm very proud of that.

The Word Is Given

2007-09-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

The File Has Been Created, and the first words of the first chapter of Book 09 have been written:

“In nine days time, this entire planet will be a molten sphere of fiery hot magma,” said David Alkema.

Keeler breathed a heavy sigh and considered the enormity of what he had just heard. He turned and addressed his crew. “All right, shore-leave is limited to one week for everybody. No exceptions!”

Book 08 Part II

2007-09-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

I anticipate this is going to be a 50-60 pp story, and I am on page 30 of the first draft. Considering it's not a tightly woven ball of plotty wotties like some of the previous stories, its moving along pretty briskly. For WA, this is one of the lamer plots, but I am having fun with the characters and cultural refs.

Like I said, Part II will focus on minor characters.

-Specialist Atlantic
-Flight Lieutenant Arambaruzabala
-Doctor Skinner
-Technician Savagewood
-Warfighter Herrald
-Specialist Brainiacsdaughter

All of whom have popped up in earlier stories.

I must remind myself never again to pick a main character with a difficult-to-spell 14-letter last name.

Update One of my characters just started unexpectedly ranting like a 9-11 Troofer. That caught me by surprise.

Meanwhile, Some Book 08 Trivia

2007-09-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've put Hellfire Part 1 on the website. It can be accessed through this link: Hellfire Part 1.

The novel Technician Jeff is reading, Lord of the Hissy-Fit, is a reference to the Longmire Does Romance Novels web page.

The Hellions were inspired by characters in bad Japanese space operas, like Fugitive Alien.
Solarites is a reference to MST3K Episode “Phantom Planet.”
Max Jordan bouncing the ball against the wall of the shuttle parallels Eddie Roebuck doing the same thing in Book 01
Driver’s reference to “self-lives” is a nod to George Orwell’s 1984.
Driver’s quote “He said ‘Gurp’ and then he said ‘Good’ and then he died” is a reference to The World According to Garp.
Quiet City is a reference to the 1940’s radio serial Six-Shooter.
Goldeneyes Dactylos is a reference to Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” books.
Ludicrous Speed is a reference to Spaceballs.
Once again, a term from the 20th Century is given a new meaning. Much as “landing gear” refers to the clothing and equipment used by away teams when exploring a new planet is a re-use of “landing gear” meaning the wheels and stuff underneath a plane, here “catalytic converter” is used to refer to equipment used in Tritium refining, and has nothing to do with pollution control devices on 20th century cars.
Matthew Driver and Trajan riffing on the “Hellfire: Wonder of the Galaxy” video was inspired by the MST3K shorts “Assignment Venezuela” and “Progress Island USA.”
Atlas Colony (from Fiddler’s Green) is referenced again.
In Chapter 6, Change tells the Hellions, ““You wouldn’t say that if you knew Flight Captain Driver…” In Chapter 9, Driver says, “You don’t know Lieutenant Commander Change like I do…” I didn’t notice this bookend until I was going through the final edit. I think these two still like each other as friends even though the romantic thing didn’t work out for them.
When Max Jordan responds to “Are you all right?” With “I’m Super, Thanks for Asking,” he’s using a line from South Park, Bigger Longer and Uncut.
Note the company the Hellions work for is ‘Crucial Space Fuels.” The abandoned building the crew explored in Crucible had a sign in front reading ‘Crucial Hydrocarbons.’

Book 08 Hellfire Part 1 now on line

2007-09-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've put Hellfire Part 1 on the website. It can be accessed through this link: Hellfire Part 1.

It won't be visible on the website until I complete the facelift that I do every time I finish one of these. The new look for worlds-apart.net is going to be much more spare and minimalistic in acknowledgement of the simple fact that I suck at web design.

Teh Joy of Rewriting

2007-08-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

All the chapters of Book 8 part I are in final draft and I've begun the progress of integrating them into a single book.

I've always preferred the rewriting to the writing. Getting through the first draft is too often just a process of laying down asphalt to get from one plot point to the next. It's only in the rewriting that I get to add in the character details, the background. You know, the fun stuff.

Yes, There Will be a Book 08 Part III

2007-08-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

It will be (for World's Apart) a very short story. (~10 pp), and it will be called "Cake or Death."

Am I Having Fun Yet? Answer: Yes

2007-08-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

In the last few pages of Book 08, I've managed to write-in a brief MST3K parody that is the most fun I've had writing this adventure. I only hope it works for everyone else, too.

Book 08 Part III?

2007-08-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

For the submission to Residential Aliens, I am kicking around the idea of doing another short story within the context of Hellfire. This would take place on the Fallon colony, and would follow what Keeler and the others were doing during the 'Island' storyline that makes up Book 08 Part II.

At one time, Hellfire was just going to be a quick novella. But it insists on metastasizing.

God Does Not Want You to Read Book O8

2007-08-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

While doing a periodic back-up from thumb drive to laptop last night, I somehow inadvertently copied old Worlds Apart files over new ones. Upshot was a month's work, including the final revisions to Book 08 and notes for books 9, 10, and 23, was destroyed.

Fortunately, I was able to find a file recovery program that restored the over-written files. It cost me $40. But none of the freeware programs could do the job. Still, instead of finishing Book 08, I spent the day trying to recover files.

This is the second time the files for Book 08 have been lost. It's like Somebody doesn't want it read.

The Homestretch

2007-08-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Into the last chapter of Book 08 Part I. Last chapters are always slow going. I'm trying to tie up the loose ends. For once, Queequeg isn't narrating. But, since there's still more to come on Book 08 after this, he can do that in Part II. Maybe he should narrate all of Part II.

Of Part II, I hadn't looked at it in weeks before yesterday, and I was kind of dreading it because from what I remembered, it was just a mash of disconnected idea with no unifying story or theme. As I read it again, I realized there is a mash of ideas, but most of them are pretty funny ideas. The problem was, I was trying to mash together every sci-fi island cliche I could think of into one story: Lost + The Prisoner + The Lord of the Flies + Fantasy Island + The Island of Dr. Moreau + The Most Dangerous Game + The Episode of Gilligan's Island Where the Mad Scientist Puts Ginger's Mind in the Body of Igor. It's all fun, but where does it take us? And my determination to center the story on minor characters also is a challenge, because now I have to figure out who these people are and stuff.

Also, it looks like work is going to get very busy over the next few months. Part II will probably have to wait until after the New Year before posting. :-(

Nine Down, One to Go

2007-08-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

Finished cleaning up the draft of Chapter 09 today of Book 08. If I can get through Chapter 10 tomorrow, I can begin integrating next week and have it on-line by Labor Day.

Note: I really hated killing off Jersey Partridge (Book 05), Halo Jordan (Book 06) and Paul Ironhorse (Book 06), but when trying to build suspense over the fate of a certain character, it doesn't hurt to have a reputation.

Question For Anyone Who Is Out There?

2007-08-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

I am considering a submission to the Residential Aliens e-zine, and the three most likely ideas I have been kicking around are:

A Queequeg-centric Pegasus story involving an alien intruder. OR
A Goneril Lear-centric story (taking place after the events in Book 06) involving an encounter with a ship from another colony, on a mission similar to the Odyssey mission, with some political undertones. OR
A Matthew Driver-Trajan Lear story covering some of the events in their "missing time" (Book 05) (the two years in the Chronos Universe).

I'm open to advice or suggestions.

My Morning

2007-08-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Driving into work, I see a cat in the road, apparently hit by a car. I get closer, and I see the cat is holding his head up. He's still alive. I stop the car. Get out. Assholes behind me honking and gesturing. I take the cat into the car. Find a nearby open supermarket (at 6:30 in the morning) and ask for a phonebook. I call the nearest 24 hour emergency vet and get directions. Drop off cat, with business card. He's wearing a collar, so they think they can contact the owner. Still kind of shaken up by this.

I still can't get passed how rude other drivers were. I stopped to help an injured animal on a low-volume, residential street, and some assholes are pounding their horns. What the Hell is wrong with people?

Sorry for the rant. I'll try to get back to work now.

Update The owner called me in the afternoon. The cat has some broken bones, but has a pretty good chance of making it. Gotta tell ya, I was real nice to my kitties when I got home last night.

Spoke Too Soon

2007-08-08T12:53:00.001-07:00

And just when you think things are going fine, you come to a chapter that's a mess and you need to start over from scratch on because it's just... unsalvageable.

Weird Stuff

2007-08-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

Book 08 is tracking well toward a Labor Day-ish completion date. The details are now the challenge. Things like figuring out how big a spaceship should be to haul 600,000 liters of Tritium.