Tag: untitled writing project

Writing Notes for February 7th

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My writing issues have been just…well, issues for a while. Between job hunting and being an at-home caregiver and getting back into good shape again (I’ve lost 15 pounds over the last two months, so that’s something)…the writing is not quite at the bottom of the queue. But, you can see the end of the queue from there.

And, I’m having to thank (honorary) Great Aunt Sarah for reminding me that for independent writers (like I think most of us are), we’re all that we’ve got and we should try to help each other out as much as we can. 

So, for any of my fellow indie writers that need someone to give their work a look-over…it won’t be formal editing, it’ll be high-level assessment at best. But if you want me to take a look, I’ll give it a good look.

Personal life?

What personal life?

Valentine’s Day has always been one of the worst holidays for me, because every year…outside of family, it feels like there isn’t anyone out there that cares for me as me. I’ve been told that this is a common writer’s dilemma-stuck inside our heads far too often, so very hard to get out-but you look at other people being happy and it’s hard for you to see the things that are good and proper in your life.

It doesn’t help that the last couple of times I’ve reached out with some of the thoughts in my head, you could hear “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” screeching in alarm from people…

On the subject of writing…

  • The Winter Solstice-This has been coming along rather well. The last big fight scene is almost done, then there’s the end results of that scene, what happens to some of the characters, then a small fight and the “connective tissue” scene for A Roman Solist.

    I’m confident enough about the results so far that I’m doing what I call “step two” for getting the book on Kindle-moving the files from Google Docs to a single Word file and running through that grammar and spelling checker. When I write, I tend to write the separate chapters as individual files for clarity’s sake (and so I’m not intimidated by a wall of black text that I have to try and go through) and then combine them at the end into a single novel-length product.

    This actually does help, because I’ve caught a few small bugs and managed to tighten up some scenes. I have a nasty tendency to over-describe, and this helps me to find where I am over-describing things.

    Cover creation, final editing, one scene that I have to write before I get to Kindle production and hopefully the book will come out soon. Maybe not Valentine’s Day but maybe the end of the month.

    This leads to…
  • A Roman Solist/A Solist In Rome-I’m at the “outline and research” phase right now, because I want people to get a really good sense of Rome, Vatican City, and a whole lot of other places that Adelaide and company will be going to.

    The biggest thing about this novel is that it’s the first of the “summer vacation” novels, and weird things happen when Adelaide is out on vacation. It’s actually quite amusing.

    Oh, and there’s also a lot of bonding time between Adelaide and one of her newest Companions, a chance to get out and explore things, the resolution of one plot line from Solist At Large, and a chance for Adelaide to get dressed up again.
  • An Ethical Succubus-Still at the first-tier outline, but I’m getting a much better sense of both the flow of the plot and the characterizations. The biggest thing is how the MC responds to the world, because they now have senses that most people don’t have. Or at least not as a native installation.

    Oh, and making the MC likable. They’re a little hard to like, even before they started having to eat people. The trick has been keeping it clear that the MC isn’t a bad person, per se, just…having to become more likable. And considering that there are people who love absolutely horrible characters and want to bang them like a screen door in a hurricane…I don’t think my job is that hard.

    Doing a LOT of research into San Francisco, and even though I’m a native…I’m finding things that I’m going “I didn’t know that!” when I’m writing. It helps that my MC isn’t a native, so their discovery is organic and genuine.
  • Other Writing Projects-The “swords and sorcery and giant robots” isekei story idea is on a burner, but it’s going to be a while before I can get to it. Mostly due to personal life issues, but I want to get to it because there’s a definite lack of good giant robot stories out there.

    Someone I had contracted with to write the filler text for his miniatures game idea dropped dead recently (no, this was a good thing, as I learned he was an absolute jerk-ass to everyone around him), and I managed to get back from his ex-wife a copy of all the content I’d written for him. Notes, backgrounds, that kind of thing. Might use it at some point for something (it’s for a tabletop science-fiction miniatures game, think Infinity or Deadzone), but not sure what I’ll use it for yet. Doing it as a miniatures game would be an option if I didn’t think the market has issues.

    But, it did give me the justification for Space Elves in three different flavors (biotech, nanotech, and “whatever works”)…

More news as it comes out, and if you feel an urge to comment, I’ll reply and talk about…well, just about anything.

Well, That Is Many Things

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So, for anyone that has been paying attention, I’ve been having a rather terrible month. It hasn’t been bad, in the sense that I’m wondering if I need a lawyer or a priest. But between a whole lot of things…it has been frustrating, and I would prefer that this wasn’t the start to 2023. Yes, “nowhere to go but up!” and all that, but I also know how easy it is to slide downwards.

What’s been going on with my family?

  • Mom finally got to Stanford and they did another round of X-Rays and similar examinations. After those, the doctors decided that Mom doesn’t have a floating bone fragment rubbing against her spinal cord.
    Other than a cracked tailbone and how painful it was…she’s in reasonable shape. When they realized this, Stanford set up a physical therapy plan and delivered oxygen for her when she is resting in the hospital bed in her own room.
    So, Mom is home, resting, recovering and finally at home after nearly three weeks banging around hospitals.
    This has not how we wanted to start this year.
  • After the last few weeks and how both Kaiser and Stanford had been treating Mom, I can imagine the conversation between her doctor and my Dad like this-
    DOCTOR: “Good news, sir! Your wife has a cracked tailbone, but no fragments or loose chips and we don’t have to operate! We can release her as soon as we get everything settled for her home care.”
    DAD: “What about all the report that she had one?”
    DOCTOR: “We’re pretty sure that there isn’t an issue.”
    DAD: “Get me a second opinion, from a doctor with an actual work ethic.”
    DOCTOR WITH AN ACTUAL WORK ETHIC (DWAWE): “Good news, sir! Your wife has a cracked tailbone, but no fragments or loose chips and we don’t have to operate! We can release her as soon as we get everything settled for her home care.”
    DAD: “What about the reports and X-Ray that says she had one?”
    DWAWE: “We’re pretty sure it was just bad imaging when she was at Kaiser.”
    DAD: “How soon can we get home before we all go crazy?”
    There will be physical therapy and recovery, but she looks a lot better, she’s actually able to think about things (right dose of pain meds), and it’s better than it was about twenty days ago.
  • Our German Shepard, Mia is VERY happy that Dad is home. We’re all trying to get back into a routine that works and after a good night’s sleep…progress.

And, what’s been going on myself and my writing?

  • More job rejections. More jobs that are putting me in a holding pattern for one reason or another. And trying to follow up so I ‘m in their mental queue, but not so much that they’re thinking that I’m some kind of creep or whatever.
    I’m going to be glad when this is over, I hate being cut loose like this. And money is nice. It can’t buy you happiness, but at the very least you can buy your own choices of misery.
  • At least I’m getting mileage in with Mia the last few days. Two miles every day, minimum.
    And Mia likes me…when Dad isn’t around. When Dad is around, she demands all of his attention and if I even get in the same time zone as Mia and could possibly distract Dad’s attention…she get extremely protective.
    (Feel free to insert jokes about how I’m the secondary person in everybody’s relationships…)
  • Back to the gym once things calm down a bit. Dad will go even if I have to push, but there will be one family member at home for Mom.
  • The Winter Solist is taking more time than I want. Mostly that one last big dance number before we reach the ending and winding up to get us ready for A Solist In Rome.
  • The outlines for An Ethical Succubus and some of the other writing ideas are coming along.
    Doing that kind of writing-story outlines and doing research-has been one of the things that has kept me sane and reasonably thoughtful during the last few weeks.

    Maybe that is my big career, if I can figure out how to get the job. Create the background and paperwork for big projects of all sorts. Ideas where I can do this and how? Preferably not Hollywood, because the place has gotten worse over the last few years. Too many horror stories, far too overpriced for someone that wants some minimum level of comforts.

Fingers crossed that this weekend will be marking a time when things are getting better and there’s nowhere to go but up.

Ideas That I’ve Been Working On

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Every author that is worth something-at some point-has a scratch file of ideas. The stories that we want to do, and all of the ideas and notes that we’ve accumulated for them. Sometimes we can’t tell the story for one reason or another-we can’t find a good narrative “hook” to get into it. Or we don’t know how to write the story so that it’s convincing. 

But authors are like pack rats, we won’t throw away a story idea just because we can’t exactly use it right now. We might learn something, or develop a technique, or something that lets us write the story. Hell, we might just have an apple hit us in the head and that inspiration lets us finally sit down at the computer and type until we fall asleep or something.

(I actually did that once or twice…look it was college. You had last-minute papers to do, the deadline was 9 AM and you start thinking that you can get away with going to bed at 3 AM if you only get the writing done… I’m just glad it came out coherent.)

So, I’m deciding to share a bit of my scratch files, because The Winter Solist final dance number isn’t coming together the way I want and I keep going back to fix things. To get my head out of that mess, I look at my scratch files for inspiration, and maybe work on those stories for a little bit.

And if I share some of these ideas, an apple will land on me.

An Ethical Succubus

The concept behind An Ethical Succubus series is built around the ideas of addiction, survival, and having your world upended. The genre could be called “urban fantasy,” but there are no supernatural elements to it. Barring “sufficiently advanced technology,” mind you.

The main character discovers that he’s become…well, something very closely defined as a “succubus”-he can change his shape, he’s incredibly strong, he’s incredibly tough, he knows what men desire, and he has a very uncomfortable need to sexually ride men to death as a woman. Bad enough that if he doesn’t pay attention to it, he just might do it without him having any real control over it, the same way a serious alcoholic or other kind of addict always has to avoid temptation or fall dangerously off the wagon.

The first book covers the main character learning about his new…condition and coming to some kind of terms with it. There’s a hilarious suicide attempt montage that takes about two chapters (and, I mean, he tries everything-hanging himself, bullet under the chin, three kinds of poison, throwing himself off a cliff, electrocution, homemade napalm…). Then, he has to figure out how he can live with himself. Thus the “ethical succubus” of the series title.

And, the more that I’m writing it, the more I’m realizing that it’s also an epitaph to San Francisco. 

What?

Because in the boom/bust cycles that San Francisco has always had, this one looks like it’s going to actually turn the city into a version of Detroit. Office rentals are massively down, costs of living are high, the problems of addicts and the homeless and crime in general, the decay of any kind of middle, and so many things about the city that I loved are dead or dying.

I go there once a month, and the city is just…sad. Like watching an old ship rot in the dock, something that was once beautiful just falling apart from apathy. And, that’s going to be a theme in the story, where the main character realizes just how the city is dying and he has to wonder at some point…

Is he a noble predator?

Or is he a carrion-eater?

It’s not quite a personal story, but San Francisco does feel bad at this point. Far too many stories of the city breaking bad. And, that’s something I would emphasize as I was writing this tale.

STATUS: I’ve written the notes for the first few books and the outlines for the first two books. There’s been some writing (the chapters are short in comparison to others, because the main character is terse at the beginning), and some progress is being made.

Armor Girls

Hey, who doesn’t want to write their own manga? (Not a comic book, at least not in the usual Marvel/DC sense.)

Armor Girls is that manga. I wanted to do something that was a hybrid fantasy-one part Tenchi Muyo, one part Guyver, and one part Dresden Files. And, it all started out as a random idea for “pitching a harem series” on a forum somewhere…

Anyways, we start out with Reiji Fujiko, who is a good kid. He’s good, and he’s nice but he isn’t soft. Working three jobs so that he can go to college, as his parents died when he was young and his Grandfather died when he was 14. He bounced around the Japanese foster-care system until he hit 18 years old, and now he’s trying to finish his degree, stay sane, and remain employed.

This is when the Tenshi, appeared, in the form of the first four Armor Girls-

  • Chikyū-A pillar of strength and power, who wants to be more than just that. And, somehow, every time she tries to relax, something happens.
  • Fuzei-Take a femme fatale and add Yamato Nadeshiko and you have Fuzei in a nutshell. She’s beautiful but underneath her flirtation and charm, she’s scared that she’s just a facade. 
  • Ōumi-She’s patient. Calm. And dedicated. And a big believer in the past and how beautiful it is (we’re talking formal kimonos and Victorian-era clothing here). But, the future scares her, and to embrace Reiji is to embrace the future.
  • Kogasu-What happens when you put Pinky Pie, Death of the Endless, and Merdita in someone that is an even split between Scottish ginger and Japanese country girl? You get Kogasu-who is…enthusiastic. And has a whole lot of other issues. Including a fear of pants (trust me, it makes sense in context).

-and, we of course have the girl that would be Reiji’s girlfriend if they had three seconds to spare between work and school, Mari. Who has her own set of issues (her parents moved overseas when she was young, left her with an aunt, and she hasn’t ever seen them when they spent any time in Japan-and her aunt treated her like an accessory).

Then, we discover that the Tenshi are actually sophisticated sets of ambulatory nanomachines that can link up with Reiji to become suits of armor. The first plot arc (which would cover the first season of the anime) deals with this, and the mysterious Apple Man that is sharing what he calls “seeds.” These seeds turn people into monsters…but, according to him, all it does is “show the real person inside.”

It all winds up into a massive conspiracy, a secret war, and Reiji figuring out how to navigate the rocks and shoals of his relationships. And explosions. Big ones.

STATUS: I’ve got some commissioned art coming from Kittyhawk on the Tenshi, I’ve got the story bible and the script for the first two issues written, and I’ve got an outline for the first four tankobons (think “trade paperbacks” in US terms).

The problem is that I can’t draw worth a damn and I can’t afford an artist right now. Especially not playing cash-float games to make sure they got paid and I could eat on a regular basis.

Untitled Spaceship Isekei Novel Idea

If you’ve been reading my ideas about the Ghost Fleets, this is where it’s leading to.

We have one human (or a small team of humans) from present-day Earth that have been uploaded into Imperial warships. And then…

…that’s where the issue begins. 

My two choices of direction from this is in or out. 

Out is a “explore the universe, seek out strange new worlds” story, with lots of exploration and my little fleet of ships being able to fight and win localized battles, but could be overwhelmed by numbers. Numbers that the major factions have. And, these ships showing up causes a lot of the area politics to catalyze and now they have to fight a war between shifting powers that want the technology they have…and might not be too friendly to our humans and their efforts to establish a new human world.

In is simple. We have people that are now in command of ships that are hidden inside of Ceres come back from the dead…and head back to Earth. Which leads to a lot of issues, because now all of this advanced technology is in the hands of people that aren’t exactly under the control of people on Earth. Meanwhile, governments and power brokers realize that there is now a fleet in orbit that isn’t under their control and wants to establish an Empire that never ruled the Earth before and is rather…strict in ways that a lot of these power brokers would feel uncomfortable with. And a lot of them would have to either stop being who they were or face Imperial justice.

And, the big question of why were there hidden ships in the Sol System, and there’s no signs that the Empire ever existed in that universe…

Hilarity ensues either way.

(And, there’s one scene that I want to do, mostly because I want to have a young girl that never knew her father have him come back from being in a coma for nearly fourteen years.)

STATUS: I’ve got a lot of notes, but the outlines aren’t working the way I want them to. There’s a lot of starships, the historical structure of the Imperium (which gets interesting, especially things like the Archons, the Time of the Five Emperors, the Empire/Alpha War, and a lot of other little details), and a lot of tech information.

…I think I’d be happy writing up universes for other people to write in. How does someone do that?

Untitled Giant Robot/Fantasy Isekei Novel Idea

Why? Because chicks dig giant robots.

I’m wanting to do more giant robot/mecha stories, and setting it in a medieval/Victorian-era universe with swords, sorcery, fantasy creatures, and giant stompy robots has a lot of appeal to me. The big inspirations are The Visions of Escaflowne and Knight&Magic, with a few other accessories added to the mix.

The setting is very European, and it is roughly about the time when Germany actually started to be a country (mostly Prussia and its allies, but they’re expanding…), and our main character is a part of the minor British-analogue nobility. Unlike most isekei stories, he doesn’t have many memories of his past life, but he does have a lot of sheer information in his head. Information that he uses to build better giant robots for himself and others.

The main character is going to start out fairly young, and because of a cosmic angel goof, he’s way overpowered magically by the local standards. So overpowered that people think that he doesn’t have any magic, because he’s far above the usual scales. This is one of the big plot arcs-the main character having to learn magic differently because he’s far too overpowered in that respect.

The second is that we get to see the classic Lensman Arms Race from the inside, as the technology changes from late Georgian to Victorian/early Edwardian era. Muscle power begins to be replaced by steam and early electricity, guns start to appear and improve, the giant robots get more powerful, magic gets more controlled and higher in power (mostly because of the main character showing that higher power levels are possible), and the world starts to change.

The big question becomes-what is the tone of this story? Do I go for the Harry Potter/Schooled In Magic-type story where we get to see the main character do his time at a boarding school a’la Eton? Or something a bit more free form?

STATUS: I’m collecting notes, I’ve got a rough map of the world, I’ve got a historical chart of the giant robots on the major faction’s sides, and how the magic system works. I’ve also got a short glossary on the terms being used in the story, so that’s something. Also, a rough outline of where I want the story to go.

And, I get a chance to build big (okay, not that big, they’re in the Labor/VOTOM/Gear scale, about 8-10 meters/28-32 feet tall) stompy robots and work out all the neat details. Like control mechanisms, how they’re powered, weapons, and all of the fun little greebles that let me give the Knights such character of their own.

Conclusion

If there is anything you can take away from this little run-through, it’s this.

Collect your ideas. Even what you might think as a silly or weak idea might find use somewhere. I’ve got whole scratch files of stories that might never see the light of day, but learning about new things is never wasted.

And, it helps you to create characters and worlds, figure out how to hook new readers, and you get to relieve your curiosity. All of which is vital for a writer.

So, get out there and add a few more pages of notes today! And always remember to hug people you like as well.

Writing Notes for December 24th

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Once again, weird energies for writing. I’ve always had issues with depression, anxiety, and worry-the combination of factors that I’m having isn’t helping any.

It doesn’t help that a number of these factors are my bloody muses-I write to escape the things that frustrate me, but I also know that those things that are a problem are out there. Waiting for me to stop being in the headspace of my characters with huge, spiked clubs. And, wanting to make up for lost time that I wasn’t feeling awful for not performing miracles to get a new job and fix my entire life in a single epic Hard Work Montage that clearly only covers a day or two of real time.

But, between these moments of anxiety-

  • Sending in resumes and doing interviews (yes, I know that applying for a job in December sucks and the writing profession is in the middle of chaos due to AI chatbots. Doesn’t matter. Have to apply for jobs.)
  • The holidays (I’m usually happier on the holidays, or at least not unhappy. Losing your job right after Thanksgiving definitely puts a pall on things.)
  • Dealing with my physical health (I love garlic and onions. I am having stomach issues and my doctor tried a dairy-free and a gluten-free diet. Not doing onions and garlic seems to be the only thing that helps…but I love garlic and onions…)
  • Dealing with my mental health (if you think I’m over-sharing now, this is positively loquacious in comparison to how I usually deal with my emotional state. Too many years of having “friends” use any momentary vulnerability to break my kneecaps will do that to you. It’s only been recently that I haven’t done the “bottle up, bottle up, bottle up, EXPLODE” method of dealing with the octopus that lives in my head.)
  • Dealing with my fiscal health (I’m in no immediate danger-the previous job gave me unemployment and I have savings. As long as I’m still on MediCal, I’m tight but not desperate. But this is an additional worry I don’t need. If you want to help, please buy a copy of Solist At Large and review it. If you want to contribute directly, thank you-anything helps and I won’t even do sad dogs in the snow montage.)

-and a half dozen other issues, I’m actually getting some writing done.

And, on that note…

  • The Winter Solist-About another 3,000 or so words, and we’re at the big dance number of the book. Once that happens, it’s time to write up the last bit of the novel, put it all together, go in to fill two spots I had to jump over (I was having a writer’s block, and rather than just pound my head there, I put notes in and will have to search for them to revise those sections.) From there, it’s getting a cover, final layout, a landing page on this website to directly link for my marketing, and then…
  • A Roman Solist-This one is going to be fun-I’ve got most of the outline done, down to the second tier with some third-tier items. Once I finish that up, I’m going to start not only writing this novel, but the outline for Solist At The Fall, where we finally meet Special Operations Group Manticore and deal with African monsters. This is where we meet Aretta, and writing her is going to be interesting…
  • An Ethical Succubus-Outline is at the first tier, and I’ve managed to get the prologue and first two chapters done (the MC isn’t quite as…observant as Adelaide is, not at first…), but I’m definitely going to need the second and third tiers before I get to seriously writing this.
  • Other Writing Projects-I’m doing an outline for an isekei novel idea, currently at the first tier with some serious wish fulfillment ideas. And it’s third person so we get multiple POV characters, which will be fun. At the very least, it’ll let me have a palate cleanser for some of the other stories. It will also let me play around the idea of elves and elven skin colors (think the opposite of Forgotten Realms, with some nasty religious implications).

    Other story ideas are percolating, as often as I can write down the notes.

I expect to be busy tomorrow, but I will try to say something for Christmas. If I don’t…Merry Christmas to you all.

Writing Notes For December 17th

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Well, the energy has been coming back, but in fits and starts. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to keep that motivation as the holidays go past.

On what I’ve managed to get done…

  • The Winter Solist-Pushing about 3-4000 words this week, which runs to about two or three chapters. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and that’s a good thing.

    I’m going to be glad to be done with this novel, and starting to work on A Roman Solist, which actually has an outline and I’m not going to have to do too much patch work in.
  • An Ethical Succubus-The outline is done and I’ve gotten the first two chapters done. The biggest issue is avoiding my usual problem of description porn, because our protagonist isn’t paying that much attention to the world around him until about chapter four or five, then we start to pick up speed.

    But, I have an outline!
  • Other Writing Projects-I’m trying to blog more, but my damned mood and energy has made that difficult. And, looking for a job hasn’t helped, either.

    (Yes, I know. It’s never easy looking for work in December. But, sooner begun, sooner done, right?)

Hopefully, there will be happier news next week for Christmas, and that will be a good thing.

Writing Notes for December 10th

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One of the biggest problems that I have for doing my writing is…intermittent motivation. There’s no particular reason for it, but there’s just times where I know that I need to finish up some writing…and it won’t come naturally.

It often requires me to do my work at the last minute. It comes out great, I’m proud of it, I just wished I could be less…dramatic about it. It’s not even the fun kind of drama, the exciting kind.

The Winter Solist is still getting closer to the endgame portion, but not as fast as I’d like.

I actually wrote a whole chapter and a half of An Ethical Succubus, and I’m going to have to revise the plot outline again (I need to have my main character do something horrible and make it clear that this was something horrible, unintentional, and they can be forgiven. But the road won’t be easy.)

Several other smaller story ideas are being worked on.

I’m writing up longer blog posts, hopefully for next week.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving Saturday

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There’s no question about it-it’s been a busy few weeks.

Work? There are some odd pulls and pushes-anybody that doesn’t think we’re going into a recession hasn’t been paying attention to advertising buys and marketing trends. Marketing is usually the first thing trimmed by a company that is expecting bad times, and that means things have been tight at my job. People have been trying to do more with less, look into Twitter alternatives (which can be summarized as slim and none-the nearest thing out there is Hive Social, and that has the feel of “Twitter, but better,” for values of “better”) so they don’t have to deal with Elon Musk, and a much tighter holiday season all around.

(Personal suggestion-right now is a time to pay cash, pay off any bills or debts ASAP, or do without unless it’s critical. It has the feel of the time just before the big crashes around 2007-2008, especially with “too big to fail” media companies working their way up their legs with shotguns, no long just shooting themselves in the foot…)

Home? Just repainted my room and finally getting everything settled back into place. I have been tired of off-white walls, and I painted them in a nice, calming shade of blue that gives the walls more feeling. Thanksgiving was quiet, didn’t have anything to do for Black Friday, and today will be the day we set up the Christmas tree. Christmas shopping will be fairly light, mostly just “useful stuff” under the tree, small things.

And, onto the writing…

  • The Winter Solist has hit an air pocket. Bridging scene isn’t working out how I wanted, so I’m either going to try and push through or roll back and go another direction. Might do both, we’ll see.
  • An Ethical Succubus has been interesting. Lots of research, and I’ve drawn up a plot flowchart, making this the second novel that I’ve done this for (A Roman Solist is the first).
  • Other stories have been…percolating. Mostly on a time-available basis.

There will hopefully be more news, and good news, soon.

The Ghost Fleet Concept

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(I blame Karl Gallagher and Alistar Young for this. And isekei novel ideas. Namely, why would you have a whole bunch of starships with AIs that were clearly looted from your local high school…)

The question that was continually asked by the Third Imperium-at least places like Naval Strategy and Planning, Imperial Intelligence Sixth and Ninth Directorates, and their respective Archons-was a simple one.

Where was everyone?

That was the big question and nobody really had a good answer for that. It wasn’t like there weren’t opportunities for races that made it past the Gaian bottleneck and didn’t nuke themselves into oblivion. Once you had the technology to reach the heliopause of your solar system, discovering slipspace wasn’t too difficult. Once you had slipspace technology, the universe was your oyster.

There were a few obvious reasons. Quite a few species ran into the Alphas and the usual way the Alphas introduced themselves was kinetic energy bombardment, followed by industrial genocide and hostle terraforming. There were hints that many species tended to find ways to kill themselves off in fratricidal wars (which is why there is a Third Imperium). And, there is the issue that in the time frame of the universe, any empire is a mere candle-flicker in terms of the length of the universe.

But, once again-where was everyone?

There was the wreckage and ruins of species going anywhere from Class II to Class VII (roughly the range from late 20th Century Earth to current Imperial standards). Hints of even more species. Some of them were even relatively “recent” in archaeological terms (i.e. somewhere in the 20,000-30,000 year old range). Everything suggested that despite the Alphas and their actions, there should be about nine to sixteen Imperial-peer species out there within a year’s round-trip by slipspace courier from Terra, a sphere a thousand light years in radius.

And yet..there wasn’t.

Once the Third Imperium had been formed after the Era of the Five Emperors, the Alphas finally defeated and destroyed, this question grew in importance. One of the theories was that there was a Great Filter mechanism, something that would clean out and eliminate empires that had reached a certain level. But, there was no indication as to what that mechanism was, what the trigger of that mechanism was, and how it worked.

Despite this, Navy Strategy and Planning, Sixth Directorate, and Ninth Directorate were tasked to come up with potential countermeasures. One of these potential countermeasures was the Ghost Fleet concept. The Ghost Fleets were designed around the idea that if there was a filer mechanism, one way to avoid it was to hide. Hide sufficient assets so that when the mechanism was triggered and the filter had swept the universe clean, a restoration of the Empire was possible.

The Archons then drew up plans, and these plans were based on the following concepts-

  • Provide enough of everything to ensure Imperial continuity of both the Empire and its people.
  • Conceal the forces-both in numbers and in depth-that short of a hard target search of every object Ceres-sized or larger in every single gravity well that had a defined slipspace limit, at least one task group-sized unit (two battlecruisers, four heavy cruisers, eight destroyers, and support ships in proportion for a total of at least twenty-two ships) would survive the filter mechanism.
  • Ensure that with the exception of archival data, every single storage facility has no more than a 2.5% commonality with any other facility.
  • Long-term storage was a major requirement. Even a “short term” facility would have to be operated unattended for at least 5,000 years without interference or direct contact.

This concept would gain the nickname of “the Ghost Fleets,” and it would stick. Even with all of these requirements, the Archons could easily perform the mission as required. Older ships that would previously be scrapped would be taken up by the Sixth Directorate and renovated to current standards. The only exception would be that ships with antimatter reactors would have them replaced with fusion reactors (storage of anti-hydrogen was considered difficult in the time frame of the Ghost Fleet concept), and the AIs used would be ones with the personalities needed to handle long term operations outside of a chain of command.

Redundancy was a key. The ships in earlier caches had a genetic “spread” of frozen (later stasis-locked) genetic material and plans to create uterine replicators for raising animals and people. Later ships would use WORM-media storage of genetic coding and there were molecular and atomic-spitters that could create the DNA as needed. Complete archival records were stored on every ship as well-from history textbooks to entertainment media-which would ensure continuity of culture. The goal was that if a single Imperial starship survived, a viable human population could be raised up to minimum standards in a century. A single cache of ships could do this in twenty-five years.

How many Ghost Fleet caches exist are unknown. Indeed, the Archons have put in a significant effort in both the emplacement and the concealment of the caches. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, there is no single list or set of lists of the caches and almost all of these lists have specific keying to divert attention, just in case. 

One major factor in planning was the “unknown unknowns” issue-could an unknown attack vector render all this planning useless? This dictated a number of planning  methods, not the least of which was that almost every single cache was designed to not accept external updates outside of a very specifically defined set of circumstances. 

One of the most “common” methods used was a quantum entanglement timer linked to a physical control system. As long as the entanglement remained active, and a “no” message was sent at the proper time, the control system would remain off. If the entanglement failed, the mechanism would engage a specific lock-down and timer system to begin starship revival. If a “yes” message was sent, a specific receiving mechanism was engaged to allow for updates and status checks.

How many Ghost Fleet caches exist is unknown. A rough estimate is that there are anywhere between sixteen hundred to four thousand of them, scattered all over Imperial space. And even this estimate is considered low. 

Getting Back Onto Schedule

~ An Author In Charge ~ Leave a comment

Last week was a little frustrating and confusing because I had to puppy-sit and that threw a lot of my scheduled life off in directions that I didn’t expect.

But, it gave me a chance to shake up how my life is.

The Winter Solist has been making process, not as quickly as I would like, but it’s getting done. And, discovering the joys of eye strain, the whole “wrapping a steel band around your head” annoying pain thing.

And, going to see a friend on Sunday, which will be good.

Hopefully, this week, I’ll share some of the ideas for the RTS Isekei idea, and there’s another Isekei story idea that is percolating in my brain. And it’s one of those ideas of…

…look, I love Japan. I think it’s an awesome place. But I know what the limitations of the country are and its people. Two of these big limitations? Racism and bullying. Something which this story idea is going to take head-on. With bells.

Back to the writing monkeygrinder, busy times.

So, Good News? I Can Have Some?

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Is there good news? Yes, there is. There’s several fronts that I’m having to deal with, and I’m having this distinct lack of fear, angst, frustration, and/or terror.

I believe most people call this “being happy.” It’s weird. It’s very weird. I like it, but it is just weird.

Academics-Staying on top and ahead of as many of my projects and classes as possible. In three weeks, I’ll have to start commuting twice a week down to San Francisco for classes. Which I’ve got timed, figured out, and I know how to make the schedule work. It’ll just be waking up early (not 4AM early, thank God for that), and making sure that my timing is good. Projects are current and working.

Internship-So far…I might have something. It seems like it’s locked in, but it don’t mean nothing until the paperwork is signed. It’s local, so the commute is short (twenty minutes, maybe), three days a week. And, it’s paid. Yay!

Writing-Going slower than I expect, but I’ve gotten started on one of the two short stories for the end of March (fingers crossed)…and, The Winter Solist is still being written. I’m getting close to the big reveals, the big fight, and the lead-in for A Solist In Rome, and that outline is growing ever more detailed as I get closer to telling that story.

Other stories are going to be on semi-hold because I need to finish my classes so I can graduate and not go crazy with all this work that I’ve got to get done. But, I might need to escape into a story or three when things get bad.

More news as it comes, I hope…