Totally forgot to post this, so… posting it.
I thought about having her suck on the lollipop, but I didn’t anyone suffering permanent damage.
Category Archives: Fox Meridian
That WTF Moment
It’s Saturday night and I am socially maladjusted so, obviously, I’m hunting for something to watch on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I have just reached the desperation point of typing in random keywords in an attempt to find anything new and worth the bother and my latest search was going to be “artificial intelligence.” (Yes, I know what I’m going to get and I refuse to watch that one. No. Not ever.) But this is where the story became weird…
I typed in ‘a’ and ‘r’ and then I was presented with a few possibles. Arrow is number four in the list, but before it Amazon managed to find four videos which fitted the ‘ar’ search term better. Four, two minute videos of young ladies in bikinis shooting an AR-15 rifle. I watched one, because… science. It’s a video. Of a girl. Wearing a bikini. Unloading a semi-automatic rifle into a target. For two minutes. I… was speechless.
I did not really know this was a thing. Girls and guns… sure. I kind of make money out of girls and guns (and swords, and magic). But… yeah.
Anyway, that’s not what bothered me so much as the fact that it’s on Amazon Prime! I’ve seen some pretty weird things turning up there recently, but YouTube videos of girls firing assault weaponry? (Not even on full-auto!)
So, basically… WTF?!
PS. The full search did turn up the Haley Joel Osment movie first… sigh.
PPS. The Ghost in the Doll word count is now 10505!
PPPS. Maybe another Kit picture on Monday.
It Has Emerged
Probably a better title for when I release the book, but…
Someone suggested I should post more frequently, even if it’s just something about what stage the writing’s in. Maybe some word counts… Almost certainly not going to do that, because it might be depressing for one thing. And I’m not going to promise to post regularly because… Well, my brain doesn’t work like that. I am lousy at the social media thing because I just plain don’t think of it as a thing to do. Possibly an age thing: I’ve been doing stuff internet related since before it was a thing, but I don’t have the mindset for what it’s become. But…
Since I seem to be in the mood currently (this’ll be 3 posts in 2 days! go me!), here’s the progress update. (And, yes I have updated the What I’m Working On page.)
Emergence is code-complete. That means it’s got all its words in it and it’s moved to the ‘awaiting editing’ phase.
I’m currently working on the plotting for The Ghost in the Doll, a title which will make far more sense when you start reading it, honestly. Yes, it’s also obviously a play on both The Ghost in the Machine and The Ghost in the Shell (which, of course is a reference to The Ghost in the Machine in itself, meta-references FTW!), but there are in-universe elements which will be revealed. First hints in Emergence.
But before I start writing GitD, Frostburn will get its first edit run. As I recall, there’s a missing scene I need to write, so that’s going to take a little longer than usual, but I expect to get started on GitD by the end of this week, barring unforeseen meteorite strikes or robot invasions.
In case you’re wondering, I don’t currently have the slightest clue what’s going to come after GitD. I should probably do something seriously different, but we’ll see where my mind is wheeling in a month.
Weekly Kawaii
Okay… ‘Weekly’ is probably a total lie, but it’s the thought that counts. It’s Monday, and we all deserve a little cute on a Monday. Kit has actually been declared to be ‘paru-kawaii,’ but you’re going to have to wait for Emergence to come out to find out what the Hell I’m talking about.
Anyway… Kit picture:
(Obligatory dumb male comment…) And who wouldn’t want Kit nursing us back to health? AmIright? Huh? Huh? (Or “wink, wink, say no more” for the older British folk among us.)
An Aside: Kit With a Bump
Over on Facebook, someone suggested that my ultra-secret ending for Emergence might be that I was going to have Kit get pregnant. (People on FB don’t read comments about not speculating, it seems, but they have gone for jokes and it’s FB.)
I said “Well, there goes the plot for the next book.” Ha ha.
Then I thought, “What would that look like? Gotta do it.”
So, pregnant Kit. About 6 months if AIs have a 9 month gestation. The father is Vali, of course. I’ve never really subscribed to the whole “pregnancy makes a woman beautiful” thing, but apparently if you’re just a virtual image, you still look too damn cute.
And it’s a shame it isn’t April 1st.
The Fox Dilema
Well, this morning I started work on the next Fox Meridian book, Emergence. Technically, I started on Sunday, but that was plotting and character planning. Today I started writing again. Rather to my pleasure, the 25k words I already had don’t need to be changed for the new plot elements I’m adding in, but as I write this I have one glaring problem: the ending.
Here’s the thing, and I’d value your opinions on this, I have three ways this could end. Essentially they follow a continuum between status quo (near enough) and extreme change. I want to go with the extreme change, but that’s a problem. Even the mid-range option has hints of the same issue, but I can work with that.
The problem these endings have is repeating myself. I want to make a big change in Fox’s life which isn’t exactly the same as something I’ve done before, but it’s so close I might as well just call it a repeat. I believe I have things to say about this which are worth it, and it’ll make several future plotlines massively more convenient logistically. I was going to do this in a later book (if I decided to go with it at all), but it just fits so beautifully into this one it’s hard to resist doing it.
I’ve now given enough away that attentive readers paying attention to throwaway scenes in the books might well guess where I’m going. PLEASE DON’T SPECULATE IN THE COMMENTS!!!
What I’d like to know is… Do you trust me to have new things to say about something I’ve done before? I’ve got a couple of weeks, at least, before I need to make a final decision. Tell me what you think.
Criminal Minds Are Everywhere
Well, they’re on Amazon and Smashwords. Criminal Minds, the 4th Fox Meridian book has now been released.
You can find it:
(Very slow from Amazon this time. Links above, but some regions may not be live yet.)
Elsa, Where Are You?
Let it Sn(G)o(w)! (My little niece is really into Frozen. Truth be told, I rather like it to.)
Anyway, here in Manchester, UK, it’s snowing. Big, thick, sticky flakes have been falling all morning and show no sign of stopping. We’re not that high up here and it’s a little too warm and wet for anything to build up. We are not talking winter wonderland here. But we’ve got snow. Real, proper, wintery snow, in March. Not very British.
It’s a perfect day to go through proofs of a novel! Okay, so it’s never a perfect day to go through proofs, but I have no desire to go outside so… Criminal Minds is back from Kate, my wonderful proofreader, and I’m working through the edits. It takes a while. Never let it be said that writing is all fun and inspiration. Also, sometime in the next day or two I need to come up with a cover and I have no ideas for that right now. However, expect to be seeing Criminal Minds at Amazon and Smashwords before the weekend is out.
I’ve booked the next Ultrahumans book (still no name…) for proofreading in mid-April, so that is going to be the next book out after Criminal Minds. This will deal with the aftermath of the demise of the Tonaldo crime-family, finally reveal what’s going on with that mysterious find in the Southern Ocean, and take us to San Francisco.
And then… Well, next Wednesday is probably going to be a break day as I spend most of it running around a disease-ravaged New York (I’ve got Tom Clancy’s The Division coming on Tuesday, but Amazon never seem to deliver games to me in a timely manner, so Wednesday…). I’ve started writing something called The Collective, but I’m saying nothing more about that one right now because I’m not entirely convinced about it. On March 18th, Daredevil season 2 is out, and on the 28th I’ve got tickets to see Batman vs. Superman in glorious IMAX 3D (never done IMAX 3D before, which is why I’m bothering with the gimmick). This kind of sudden influx of superhero imagery could easily result in me throwing my hands up and leaping into Ultrahumans 4 which is called Frostburn (you note I know that, but I still haven’t figured out a title for book 3…). I know what’s in it, so it’s just a matter of writing it down and I’ll probably be in the mood… We’ll see.
Posted in Fox Meridian, News, Ultrahumans
Tagged amazon, Criminal Minds, ebook, sci-fi, smashwords, snow, superheroes, The Division
Happy Christmas-y Stuff
So, I had various standard Christmas pinup-style things organised and it got to be today and I thought, ‘No, let’s do something different.’ Therefore, we get Fox and Kit doing ‘fantasy warrior defending the enslaved foxy-princess.’
And may you all have a good day tomorrow, whatever you’re celebrating.
DeathWeb Is Out There
Amazon decided to be faster about this than I thought…
Enjoy!
Witches and Ray-Guns 