Editing is like pulling hen's teeth.

 Dear Reader,

I am currently working on line edits for a book in the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar series. It is slow going and exhausting. I have discovered places where one character wound up with three different names. I have found typos galore. It isn't pretty. And this doesn't account for the fact that I still have to reformat the page size and type font for the entire document. 

Some of you may say, "Deb, why don't you hire an editor?"

The simple answer is that I'm broke. The extra money that could have gone towards getting this professionally edited and proofread is going towards my son's braces. It's the same reason why I haven't done anything like those nifty book trailers that you've seen on Facebook or paid for advertising. I just don't have the cashflow to make it happen. It forces me to sit down and go through a document a good six or seven times before I deem it ready for publication. It can take months, especially when my depressive episodes sap my ability to think clearly.

At one point, my mother-in-law told me how I needed an agent. She was convinced that if I had an agent that one of the big traditional publishers would be interested in my series of books. I mean, it's not everyday that someone says "Hey, we've got the first third of a thirty book series right here and it's not half bad. We just need to put it to press and slap a better cover on it." The problem is, since I have gone independent publishing, they want to see big purchase numbers before they are even remotely interested.

I don't have big purchasing numbers. I'm a small fish in a big ocean in a market that's rather glutted. It requires me to push advertising and the money for that is going for household needs and my kids' needs. If I won big ticket lotto, maybe I'd throw money in this direction. I don't know. By now, editing myself is a habit. Finish writing a book, set it aside for a few months, and then start the long process of edits and read throughs. I've gotten halfway decent at it, despite the word processor's attempts to correct my spellings and such.

I am very 'type a' about my writing. It is part of the reason why I am an independent author. I want that creative control over pretty much everything. I've heard horror stories from some traditionally published authors about how the manuscript got butchered in the editing and formatting process until it no longer resembled what they wrote. It happens a fair amount of time from what I have heard. I may not sell well, but I am telling the story that I want to tell. Not something that is watered down and filled with hype oriented concepts that will make it more 'appealing'. It's a measure of freedom that I don't think I am going to give up. Authenticity in my writing is the most important thing right after making sure that I get character names right and I clean up all the typos.

Science Fiction: Rs = 2GM/c^2

 Dregan heard the old intercom crackle to life as the Librarian gave orders for security to assist the technicians maintaining the Archive, to open the seed vaults, and prepare for an evacuation of the station. At the same time, via the link in his brain that connected him to the data network, the ship, and Angel, Dregan could hear something like static and a high speed code being transmitted. "Aeolus," Dregan said, "What is that code?"

"Security in the fore quarters of the building are being ordered to seize me. They will not succeed. Remain on the level below, as per my captain's direction. She is coming to meet you."

"You are a research class vessel, Aeolus," Dregan thought, slipping into a darkened doorway to hide from security officers moving past him, "How are you going to hold off an army?"

"Plasma thrusters to forward position. Maeson, you're on my six. Once we breech the building, we're going to take over the data network and bring the Librarian to his knees. Dregan, hold on level two beneath the primary atrium. Be ready for a second wave of forces. I want you to tell me if they're bringing the goods or not." Angel's voice sounded in his head, "Observe and hold position unless they're about to drop you."

Dregan pushed the door at his back open and stepped into the room, allowing it to swing shut partially. As he watched the Librarian came striding down the hallway with a young child in his arms. The child said to the Librarian, "But, Father, I do not want to die." The Librarian set the child down in the center of the lower atrium. He looked around the room at the different hallways leading off to different parts of the complex. 

"You were born to die," the Librarian said, "As are we all for the greater good of humanity." Dregan turned and looked around the room. Finding a chef's knife in the tiny space that served as a kitchenette for the security officer quartered there, Dregan picked it up and slid back to the doorway to watch. The Librarian took out their own knife and looked about again. "I know you're here somewhere, Dregan," the Librarian called, "Come out or I start with this one first."

Dregan opened the door as the Librarian's black velvet clad back was to him. Dregan darted forward, holding the chef's knife in his right hand and reaching out with his left as he rushed past the Librarian with terrific speed. Before the Librarian could do anything, Dregan had grabbed up the toddler clone and rushed into a room on the opposite side of the atrium. Dregan set the clone down on the floor. "Hide," Dregan said, "I'll deal with him. You're not going to die today."

The Librarian's footsteps echoed in the room with the arched ceiling and elaborate murals. "Dregan," the Librarian said, "You're not going on that ship." Dregan looked around the room and spotted a filet knife in a sink waiting to be washed. Dregan took it up and held both knives along his forearms in a reversed grip. "You may be a brawler, Dregan," the Librarian said, "But I know hundreds of knife work techniques in an array of historical cultures. I'm going to carve you to pieces. I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

Dregan stepped out of the doorway of the officer's quarters. As he did so, the door slowly swung shut behind him. "You talk too much," Dregan said as he began to pace around the Librarian.

"And you don't talk enough," the Librarian answered, "I have tried for thirty years to get you to give me the key to synchronization sickness. You are the only one who has survived it. I will carve open your head and inspect your link. I will upload the data into the core system and I will learn what ..."

Dregan darted forward and brought his left knife into play. The Librarian blocked it with his own knife as Dregan's right knife buried itself into the Librarian's guts. The Librarian looked shocked. Dregan's knife ripped upwards until it hit the sternum. Then Dregan angled the knife into the Librarian's chest and through his heart. As the Librarian sank to his knees, he said weakly, "That's not cloak and dagger technique."

"Aeolus, hack the Librarian's link again and upload all usable data," Dregan said.

"That will require uploading his entire consciousness," Aeolus said.

"Surely there's a data stack he can be dumped into storage in," Dregan said as the noise of fighting filtered down from above.

Aeolus didn't reply. The ship began the data upload even as the first shot with the plasma thruster was fired. The blast doors of the upper atrium were scorched but seemed still impenetrable. The Librarian's last thought before the data transfer was complete was terror and the sensations of indescribable pain as he was ripped from his dying body. "Data transfer complete. Data is stable and the personality is intact. The Librarian is now in stasis," Aeolus said, "Incoming forces on your level. Processing. The majority are not hostile. The hostile forces against you number sixteen."

"Spec-fucking-tacular," Dregan muttered. The toddler clone opened the door and looked at the body of the Librarian at Dregan's feet. They then looked up at Dregan. 

"Are you Father now?" the child asked.

"Sure, why not." Dregan said. The child sat down, closed their eyes and concentrated. Through the neural-linked data network of the clones, the child sent them the image of the Librarian's corpse and Dregan with the message that Dregan was now Father to the clones.

"Father, should my brothers and sisters continue to try to take the ship?" the child asked.

"No, the should stand down and assist in the rescue mission. Have them open the blast doors before they're turned into slag."

Aeolus and Angel, by virtue of their synchronized link with Dregan's mind could hear this conversation. Aeolus rotated the plasma thrusters back into their usual position. Angel continued walking down the gangplank with Maeson at her back. "Get ready, we're going to see how loyal these clones are to Father," Angel said. The blast doors of the main entrance of the seed vault complex opened. The armed clones stepped back and formed a corridor down the center of the space to the elevator down to the second level. Maeson felt sweat trickle down his back as the red haired man hoped that no one had an itchy trigger finger.

"Come upstairs, lover-boy," Angel said. Dregan took the toddler by the hand and helped them to their feet. They walked to the elevator and pushed the call button. The doors hissed open and they stepped in. When the elevator doors opened, Dregan's breath caught in his throat. She looked older. Her inky black hair now had streaks of grey and there were a few wrinkles on her face, but it was Angel. Dregan let go of the child's hand and rushed forward opening his arms.

Maeson brought up his rifle but Angel dropped her weapon. She let herself be caught up in Dregan's ferocious embrace. As he buried his face in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder, he gave a single body wracking sob. "I thought they killed you," he whispered.

"Funny," she answered in a choked voice, "I thought the same. I went off world after the company scrambled my brain. Aeolus unscrambled it." Maeson looked around, visibly uncomfortable. He coughed and muttered something about the damned cold. "Shut up Maeson, let me have my moment," Angel muttered back at him. Dregan gave a bark of laughter and straightened, still holding Angel close to him. He reached up and touched her grey hair.

"Silver looks good on you," he murmured.

"Father, where do we put the seeds? Where do we put the food and clothes?" the child clone at his side asked, tugging on the hem of his shirt. Dregan looked down at the clone with eyes like his and sighed. He let go of Angel and stooped to pick up the toddler who spoke like an older child.

"Creche?" Angel asked. The child looked at her.

"I can run five hundred simulations of the Creche in my pod," the child said. Angel paled slightly. Things earthside were far worse than she had thought. "Will we be bringing the pods?"

Aeolus's voice came through the speakers of the intercom system and the neural-links of all cybernetically enhanced units. "The Creche is not in my system and the sleeping pods are not linked into my system. Once we go starside, you will be free to decide if you wish to remain linked. The neural-link system you have depends on the satellites. Education will be provided as requested about the neural-link systems and their functions. At this time, please begin loading the hold with goods."

~ Fin ~

This serial story was a fun ride into science fiction. It holds a couple of clues as to the scifi project that I have sitting on the back burner. The origins of this story go back to 1998 when I was bored in Calculus class. The neural-link concept dates to then. Sorry, Mr. Musk, but I've got dated paper records on this project and a list of people who can attest to it.

News re: Serial Stories

 Dear Reader,

Next week, I will be updating Dacia's War. Later today, I will be updating The Iron Lily and that science fiction thing I've got going here. It'll be going up around 8pm Eastern time. I finally got through that pile of posts and even found some of my notes as I was deep cleaning in the living room. (My notes had some artwork on the back provided by my youngest son but he's of the inclination that if one side of the paper is blank it's fair game for drawing out his plans for robots and such.)

Craft of Writing: Let Your Past Antagonists Be the Villains.

 Dear Reader,

First, I'd like to apologize for my lack of posting. I have been unwell and it has everything topsy-turvy. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things but it is proving difficult. Which, in a round-about way brings me to the subject line of this post and the main theme. As authors and artists, we are told to work with what we know. At the same time, we are cautioned not to let our 'real' lives bleed into our work unless we are writing an autobiography or a memoir.

To use a bit of strong language, that second bit of advice is bullshit. Now, I'm not saying that you name names or doxx the person who bullied you relentlessly in eighth grade. But you can take their character traits, their personality traits, and the various qualities that made them who you knew them to be and use that to create a villain that you can avenge yourself by proxy upon that old bully. Your experiences are your own to do with as you please. If people don't like it, they should have treated you better. Especially when you are writing a memoir or an autobiography. That's where the kid gloves come off and you lay bare all the ugly facts and unburden yourself of horrors that you have lived through. 

Turning an old nemesis into a fictional villain can be a cathartic experience. Nearly every villain that's died in my books have had some elements of people who've done evil things to me in them. A few are full on reproductions of the person, but you would have to exactly who I was describing down to the intimate details that I am aware of about them to have a hope of identifying them.

Sometimes there are people who will actually threaten to sue you for defamation after they learn you are a writer and they've done you wrong. All it takes is some strategic fictionalization of qualities and exaggeration of other qualities for those people to be unable to have a legal foothold in such a lawsuit. Remember, always note that your characters are 'incidental' in their resemblance of real people, living or dead.

Craft of Writing: Keep a Book Bible or Not?

 Dear Reader,

I've been experimenting with trying to get all of my notes in order and creating a 'book bible'. This is the ultimate notebook of source material for your novel or series. I'd like to report that I've had some success with this but, honestly, I have so much material scattered over so many places that the act of collating it into one spot is hazardous. It is an exhaustive, labor intensive process to transcribe material that is in other places into one book. I simply don't have the spoons for it at this juncture to do so. It's a great concept but I am left digging through notebooks for snippets that I remember putting down and discovering more that I had forgotten about.

The closest thing I have to a book bible is a notebook that I filled with ideas back in 1998 when I had the first version of the first book come back to me from a shady company's contest shredded and discovered that the file for the book had gotten deleted because a certain someone decided that my book was definitely going to win a publishing contract and we didn't need the manuscript anymore. (Book one of the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar has been rewritten three times before it reached its current form. Each rewrite was a result of nonsense like that.) I still reference that little notebook. But I simply have too much material scattered around to put it into a notebook and organize it.

I was disappointed when I realized I simply couldn't do this. Because the premise of having all of your material in one place to reference is fantastic. I am going to attempt to do this with other projects, but the Umbrel Chronicles of Evandar simply can't have a book bible. I'm too disabled to take the work out of approximately fifteen notebooks and jam it into one and then organize it. I am highly frustrated with this fact. At the same time, I have those notebooks in approximately the same space so I can find what I need after a few minutes of searching.

As it stands, anyways, those original plans and how the books are evolving are very different. Things took a hard left in book six and I'm not entirely sure how to fit the story back into the container that I had formed for it. But, I think the books are stronger and more interesting for deviating from the plan. This is also something that I can't go backwards and cram into a single notebook. The closest thing I could do is keep a plot log as I was writing. I tried that once. It was an awful experience.

So, if you're going to keep a book bible, start it at the baby stages of your project. Trying to go backwards and cram it all in later is madness.

Update Time!

 Dear Reader,

I have not been in good health over the last month or so. Well, actually a bit longer as you can tell by my gaps in posting. I've been having lots of problems with sleep which lead to a hypomanic episode. Those are extra fun (if only there was a sarcasm font). I have to distance myself from the internet and social media so that I don't say or do something horrifically stupid thinking that I'm witty when I'm actually mentally unbalanced at the time.

The hypomanic episode seems to have passed. (My project room is almost clean because I was compulsively organizing everything. I think I have enough yarn to insulate a tiny house now.) I am going to attempt to get back to writing material for you. It is difficult for me to concentrate because my brain is still a bit haywire due to my sleep issues. I am working with my doctor to resolve this. It is my hope that I will be able to get back to regular posting within the next month, at the latest.

Thank you again for your readership and your patience with me. This disabled author appreciates you bushels and bushels.