Books Worth Reading
Or at least, that's what I intend. An inflection point in the current WIP, Maroli Tango, hot off the author's desktop.
Blustery weather conditions over the South Atlantic had moved across Ruksa Zila’s course an hour after sunrise. By midmorning, gusts were strong enough to bend trees.
At the owner’s residence, top of the hill above RZ’s hospitality village, cloudy skies loomed, great room patio doors shook. Five hundred meters below, turbulent seas churned.
Continue reading “Evocative”
Another teaser from Maroli Tango. Third editing pass. A lot of revision and shuffling around of narrative threads. The writing's getting better, I hope.
Nashville, Tennessee
Conservative pro-wholesome-values commentator Mark Washburn sat at a dining table in what might have been his home.
He said, “There’s a new sheriff in town; a Zirna Zapha NGO that goes by the name of Osadhi, in recent weeks beating up on organized crime in an effort, they say, to choke off the money and muscle that keeps Earth’s most toxic powerbrokers in business.
Our guest pilots the spaceboat Sthiti Osadhi on raids. He describes himself as a bus driver, roadside mechanic, locker room attendant and more recently, publicist. This week, Mason Fowlkes launched a new streaming service, Classic Cosmic TV, delivering vintage content from the planets Vidura and Jivada.”
Continue reading “Podcast!”
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFE89U8ghGoPAOZopAaGdSg
TikTok
Yet another teaser from Maroli Tango. Enjoy!
The first chapter of a story is always the hardest to finish, even when last words have been written.
Anuraga Media’s first installment of Unseen was burdened by an elephant in the room, a twist if you will, motivation to rush the backstory with documentary footage, the void of space, the glitter of stars, a giant spaceship firing lasers, subtitled communications chatter.
Visceral. Trust the audience to get the idea. Jump right in.
Continue reading “Space War!”
Appended herein are the first nine chapters of a first-draft, first-master-edit novel-in-progress, which I anticipate publishing around July 2024.
Writing is an activity, something I do for fun. Promoting the work is a grind. It takes a lot of effort. It’s expensive, rarely productive, and I don’t have to do it, so I won’t. This little bit I’m doing here is writing. It’s fun.
If you’re an avid reader, or a writer, or someone thinking about becoming a writer, or curious about process, carry on. Nobody exposes this kind of material. It’s in rough shape, potentially embarrassing. I shouldn’t even let Beta readers see this stuff, and yet here we are.
Continue reading “Maroli Tango — The Front Nine”
I'm STILL not serializing this book.
White House Marine Guard commander Daryl Price appeared in time to witness Colonel Clarke’s wife Lorretta arriving in an aircar on the Oval Office patio.
Lorretta’s on-call CH Banks bodyguard pulled Brandon and Captain Price into a pow-wow on the topics of anticipated threat level, distribution of fighting drone assets, and whether to eat lunch now or later.
Captain Price told Brandon, “I don’t mind tagging along for the party, but I thought you were functioning as the President’s shadow.”
Brandon said, “I’ll be right there, and that was my intention, but I’ll leave it up to you. She and I are on a date.”
Continue reading “Space Soap Opera!”
A possible final title for the novel. On the cover, I'm thinking we dress Pascal in a sash and do-rag, holding a long-stem rose in his tertiary tentacles.
On Tuesday, Secretary of the Treasury Norbert Donaldson denounced President Carmen Benequista as a “Reckless tyrant, having no understanding of fundamental economics, willing to wreck the world financial system to settle her petty grievances.”
Angela Moss, Carmen’s Chief of Staff, said, “You should go ahead and dump him in the ocean.”
Carmen loitered in an Anodyne corridor, natural body lying comatose on her bed, speaking with her friend virtually, from the Virtuality. “He obviously didn’t believe I’d do it.”
“It’d be nice if we had intel about his situation.” Angela arranged papers on her desk. “Who do you think’s leaning on him? CIA? East coast mob?”
“Enforcing policy for central banks? Has to be the CIA.”
A door at the end of the hallway changed color from red to seafoam green. On the other side of the door, an oval opening waited, the sort of thing one might find on the back of a gorilla costume.
Carmen took three steps into an abrupt scene change. Angela Moss snapped into clear focus, in Super 3D Ultra-Vision, delivered by her maroli valet’s high-resolution sense array.
The aroma of lavender filled her nostrils. She said, “Pascal; did you take a shower in my quarters?”
Pascal replied, “This one has never felt so fresh.”
Angela said, “You guys are creeping me out.”
Carmen bounced on phantom legs, feet barely connecting with the floor. She wiggled a tentacle. “Give me a pen.”
With a few delicate strokes, the Treasury Secretary was fired.
Angela grumbled. “Let’s not tell anyone we’re signing documents this way.”
Carmen pedaled her legs, invoking flight mode, soaring to the ceiling. She said, “I won’t if you won’t.”
Her chief-of-staff retreated to a corner. “You could swoop down on Norb Donaldson in his back yard. Nobody would see it.”
Hovering in front of a mirror, Carmen attempted a shrug. A maroli has no shoulders. It didn’t translate. “I could, couldn’t I?”
Seriously. I’m at 43,000 words and I don’t have a title. Here’s a teaser from Chapter 109.
It was four miles from the White House to a bar and grille in Arlington, where an Ivy League educated economist had been ensconced for the past hour-and-a half.
Carmen boarded the same housekeeping maroli she’d used twice, once earlier in the day, for the purpose of signing documents in her own hand. The machine was off-duty, in a dark closet, sipping nutrition through a straw out of a crushable plastic box.
She wiggled her avatar into the maroli’s form factor, arms operating two large tentacles on the top row, saying, “Hello again. Are you finished with supper?”
It tossed the box into a waste bin. “This device has eaten.”
Continue reading “Name this book!”
What if science was to prove the doctrine of the immortal soul? Amil Leyta intended to work in orbital manufacturing, but his studies have taken an unexpected turn. He’s built a device that images the essence of life, evoking the discovery that there’s more than one type of soul.
They appear on his monitor at deathbed vigils, shining bright across the boundary between dimensions. He imagines they’re angels, guiding spirits to the between-life, and wonders if the Gods will allow what he must do next.
Because Amil knows how to bring them here.
All my titles are #KindleUnlimited.
A solicitation for a First Chapter writing contest caused me to restart work on a Ghosts of Ancient Vidura follow-on — now at eight chapters, too sketchy to submit to a competition much less post any of it on my website, although that’s what I’m about to do.
Why? Because feedback is valuable, and one never knows where it’ll lead. As to the contest in question, even if the manuscript was ready-for-reading, terms of service didn’t stipulate sharing of judges’ notes with authors. Feedback is unlikely. I’ll save my twenty dollars for a better offer, but thanks for making me start writing again.
Meanwhile, I was curious enough to read the submissions of prior contest winners and runners-up, a reminder not to care a whole lot about what publishing gatekeepers are looking for in works of fiction. Thematically, not what I’m doing. In terms of voice, the experience left me uncertain about my approach.
I don’t wax lyrical in early chapters. I could. I know how to do it, but I don’t. In my view, and that of many authors, opening lines are best dedicated to arrival at the inciting event. Tell the reader what the grass smells like after you’ve dragged him into the story.
Here's my sketchy first chapter, first draft. The book is yet untitled. What do you think? Should this passage be more evocative? Tell me in the comments.Continue reading “Contested”
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