New Novel Progress: Getting out of trouble.

I'm almost to the point in the new novel where the story changes from a telling to a denouement. That's a damn fine place to be after all the effort. Chap 18 and 19 are going to have to be merged and split at some point, which will re-structure things to twenty two chapters at least. For now, Chap 20 (as outlined) is where I need to get to declare Manuscript Complete. A first pass at Editing has gone well, too, having gotten several pages into Chap 19 already. If we time this right, I and my Editor will be both focused on the structural changes and then going at "known" rewrites in about a week. Which means it is time to wave this flag:

Some of you will be asked to be "beta", or pre-publication, readers. IF you are, one of the key things you will be asked to do is to read the manuscript quickly. That doesn't mean you can't, or shouldn't, do a careful read... but I think it would help most to get some quick "this needs to be fixed" feedback before anything more detailed. Big fixes take time, and there is still the hope to make the book fit for publication before the end of April.

With that out of the way, here's some more information about the story in the new novel.

The deep team, our main character and his three colleagues, enter Guinea-Bissau as two pairs. I've already teased a bit of the arrival story for Alan and Matty. Here's an excerpt from when Anna and Charlie get in-country:

Holmgren and Duarte had the first part of the afternoon to themselves. They were scheduled for a “welcome meeting” with some of the higher-ups in the Ministry of Health and Education at 1630hrs, but that gave them time for lunch and a couple of hours to get to know what was within walking distance of their hotel. The lunch special at the hotel restaurant was a fancy fish dish presented as if it was French haute cuisine, which Charlie dubbed Maquereau hors de prix. Anna was still smiling about the waiter’s reaction to overhearing that phrase when they paid up and set out for a stroll. She had a linen parasol helpfully offered by the hotel, but even with that, there was no making haste in the mid-day heat. None the less, if there was a pleasant part of Bissau City to take a walk around, this was it.

 Colonial-era government buildings were arrayed nearby, casting short shadows onto the surrounding grounds. The French had a Cultural Center in addition to a prime location for their Embassy. There were several other embassies in the neighborhood as well. The Soviets had only a ceremonial presence, but the Cubans had a substantial building constructed from a significant portion of all the concrete in the country and none of the architectural grace. The Americans were nowhere in sight, having settled for a place out in Penha District to the West as they were latecomers here. The British had a flea speck of a presence at the edge of this neighborhood, close to the old estate that the Portuguese had begged permission to buy as an embassy after they gave up this colony.

The time spent walking gave them some time to talk, although what they spoke of were things appropriate to the identities they were in. A few details became apparent, like the complete impracticality of depending on the network of local buses and the manifest population imbalance between men and women. The first was explained by a lack of imported parts to properly maintain the buses. The second was a reminder of when the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, the local Communists more commonly known as PAIGC, took over the country. They were pretty quick to round up and slaughter anyone who had been a loyal soldier to the Portuguese. Filling mass graves with ten thousand bodies of military age men, when the entire country had a population of under than a million people, meant the gender ratio was even more off-parity than was common in West Africa.

Nice neighborhood, isn't it? Hope you enjoyed this sample and I'll be posting here again soon!

A Writer's Device: Embellishment!

It's been a lovely month of travel, writing, relaxing and sorting out other things in my life. It was a much-needed change of pace, but it's time to be seen here again. Hope you've all been well in the interim!

There is always a bit of a choice when you are asked to tell a story about an experience... besides simply making a fiction of it, which some people seem to love to do (( shrug ))... but in this case I mean "Tell it dryly and expect the story to entertain all by itself" or "tell it with some style and panache; dress things up to convey thoughts and mood". The latter of those options is the right way to Embellish a telling. Add nothing untrue, but have fun with conveying the tale.

Here's an example from my travels last month: The Tomato Juice Telling.

I was seated center on the flight from Japan to Seattle... crammed into a crowded row as usual in Economy, but with no aisle to lean into for space. About an hour after take-off was the drink service, and the following happened.

Dry Telling:

"When the Flight Attendant tried to put my drink on my tray table, I had my arms under the table to get a mobile device out of the seat back. The drink slid off the table and into my lap, spilling all of it. Had to protect the people sitting next to me from the spill, and one of them got relocated to another seat during the clean-up. My clothes had to be washed in the sink and left to dry in the back cabin for the flight. I got given the seat next to mine, and a couple of blankets to cover up for the flight time."

yeah, that happened. But it is a bit of the "what a bother" told that way. The following is a lot more fun to hear:

Told With Style:

"When the Flight Attendant tried to put my drink on my tray table, I had my arms under the table to get a mobile device out of the seat back. The drink slid off the table and into my lap, spilling all of it. She'd already looked away, so might not have seen it happening. Or as it was a Delta international flight, with their seniority system, and she being a late-career Jaded As Fuck Flight Attendant, maybe she didn't care...

"Drink went straight into my lap. Belt to ankles, Tomato Juice. I couldn't move as I was center seat and had to keep the splash off the people next to me. I asked rather loudly of the Attendant as to what just happened and what to do about it. Got big cow eyes and no words in reply. Fortunately, there was a second Attendant in the other aisle close enough to ask for assistance. I got a response from her, at least. "You'll need to clean yourself up." Oh boy, they recruit the top of the Attendant class for these flights, it seems.

"About this time I saw that the spill was about to leak onto the seat with the nice Vietnamese girl sitting beside me. I warned her that some of the spill might be about to get on her sweat pants... and was greeted with the Wide Eyed Panic of someone facing terror for the first time. Maybe she had a tomato phobia? Anyway, she bolted from her seat, fled to the back cabin, howling plaintively about how she HAD TO BE reseated. At least it freed up that seat and I might be able to stand up now.

"When I got to the aisle, Responsive Grandmother Attendant finally realized how big the mess was and started to try to do something useful. Like clean up the seat and floor. I, realizing I was Priority Nil on her list, got her attention long enough to ask that the Purser meet me up at the Lavatories to help with clean-up and recovery there. Amazingly, she agreed to call the Purser.

"So by the time I've had the pleasure of emptying my trouser pockets carefully and ineffectually rinsing most all of my clothes in the tiny sink, there was a knock at the door of the Lav... Where I was greeted with a fine figure of manhood, 6'3" and strongly built, the embodiment in appearance of Biff Manley, Man of Action, but with the voice of a schoolgirl. The Purser. "Oh. That's... quite the mess."

"My hero leapt into action, offering to take all the rinsed clothes to the bigger sink in the Aircraft Kitchen, wash them out and hang them in the Back Cabin to dry during the remaining 6 hours or so of the flight. He told me to wait, too. After only a few minutes, he was back with 2 fresh blankets for me to use to wear. I carefully considered options, and went with the fashionable choice... tied one on as a Flight Sarong, and draped the other over me when I got back to my now-mine aisle seat.

"In case anyone ever offers you a Flight Sarong as a wardrobe option, I do recommend them. A bit breezy, and can be racy if you don't manage the slit side properly, but very comfortable. They may well be the Next Big Thing in Travel Wear.

"The rest of the flight was uneventful, up to about 40 minutes before arrival... when Purser Manley came by to drop off my clothes, dried... and folded neatly. I was somewhere between boggled and amused and went to get dressed again. If there was a way to tip Flight Attendants, that man sure earned one.

"and I, now guaranteed to be free of any skunk aroma, was dressed and ready for landing. Sadly, they didn't let me keep the blankets for the Flight Sarong, so I can no longer dress like the Malay Villains in a Bollywood action movie. Oh well... I got to Seattle, at least."


Heh, hope you enjoyed the Embellishment. Will post soon about New Novel Progress and other things!