This and That

So this is a few days early...so what, it's my blog. Various updates follow.

Naval rules
I've heard good things about Seekrieg V. They've individualized the ships, and the damage is more detailed. Not good for massed fleets, but good if you want the shell-by-shell method of naval gaming. I'll want to try them out, but that may take a bit.

General Quarters 3 is out, though I haven't gotten it. I didn't get a chance to see it played at Conquest, either. I'm hoping it's like GQ1 and 2, but I suspect not. The chatter on the GQ Yahoo Group makes me think otherwise.

My own dabbling has been to take Battle Stations and whatever version of Seekrieg I have. The latter is to limit rate of fire and give realistic hit totals. I played Battle Stations with range estimation and saw somebody put 28 hits into a destroyer with 3.9" rounds. Shouldn't have been much left. Obviously most gamers don't know how naval shooting is done, and put their weapons at max rate of fire regardless of the range. More later.

The Salamis Project - revealed here for the first time (sort of). This is an attempt to do the Battle of Salamis on a 1:1 scale. The rules have to be simple: Greek triremes sink opponents on a 4-6, Persian triremes on a 5-6. Boarding is simplified, movement is simplified, and turn sequence is Side A goes, have combat, Side B goes, have combat, major morale, repeat as necessary. I was going to use printed ships; now I'm looking for a very cheap source of triremes miniatures.

Writing
I completed (more or less) Spiked!. This is the story of a dryad who works for a large forest products company as a forester. First, hamadryands are tied to specific trees; dryads aren't, though they tend to favor types of trees. Jennifer Oaks is from the oak tree part of dryads. She has to deal with someone who spiked a tree. 'Spiking' a tree is when someone drives several large metal spikes into it. When the sawmill blade hits a spike it flies apart, quite likely killing or wounding the workers in the sawmill. At the very least it destroys the saw. The idea is to keep people from cutting trees.

Jen was an interesting character to work out. She's a dryad, so she can 'enter' trees, and even live inside them. But she's also a bit insecure (she's a long way from home and her family). I try to handle this with word choice and 'voice'. Her only support is her cousin Chloe, who's a hamadryad. I think this one could sell.

I think there's also room for more stories about Jen.

Lexeon
I have finished the first major rewrite on Lexeon, and have run it by Milt. I shrank it by 3 chapters, and feel I could shrink it by some more. We'll see. I'm not going to work on it for a bit, sort of let it estivate. Still have to sell Firestar first to create the market for Setosha and Lexeon.

Different World
Read the first half of Chapter 5 at Writer's Group. Minor changes, more when I got going and did some seriously looking at it. I finally got started on Chapter 6. I get these blockages, and in this case I knew another system here at home had a part of a possible Chapter 6. I finally found it, and things got unstuck in a hurry. In that Chapter 6 John and Gina declared their love. Nope, don't want it. Gina has to suffer (and so does John). That's best done by a rip-roaring argument brought about by misunderstanding and miscommunication (though Gina does most of the arguing and yelling). Have to do some more plotting here. But the rest of the chapter includes introducing a couple of minor characters to each other, and recapping how Gina makes money in that world (part owner of a brassiere company). And then we have the police investigation, which is only part of the story.

Devlin and Sammi
Blockage again. I tried working on both of them today, and got just a few words out. My subconscious obviously wants a different approach. I think Sammi is closer to breakthrough than Devlin. Besides, I need to get a Sammi chapter out there. It's been a couple of months.

Other
Baseball season is just around the corner! And right now the Ms are in first place (well, everyone else is, too). They've got decent starting pitching, and Felix. They've got a decent bullpen, and JJ. Hopefully Arthur Rhodes, too, and this kid Brandom Morrow from the U of W. A solid defense on the left side, and decent on the right. And Ichiro up the middle. Now if their hitting comes around they won't be in the cellar. It won't be 2001, but that was a season for the ages.

Play Ball!!!!!

Time for an Update

So where am I with things?

First, I'm now involved in editing a second author's work. Winemaker, whom I met through Nick Scipio's forum, is in desperate need of an editor. He suffers from too many words. I've been coaching him on what to do with the manuscript when it is done, now I'm seeing his prose.

Second, I've reread The Shattered Sword, which is a look at the Japanese side of the Battle of Midway from primary Japanese sources. Fascinating. If you're reading this, and you haven't bought and read this book, do so. I also read Clash of Carriers about the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. It isn't as good as The Shattered Sword, but it has a good contrast between the air action over the Japanese carrier Ryujo and what happened over the USS Enterprise.

Third, I've been reading the Dresden Files, the Harry Dresden stories. He lives in Chicago, and he's a wizard.

Fourth, my writing has sputtered a bit. Let's run through the stories.

Firestar: I got off the stick and rewrote the ending (from Chapter 16 on), mostly utilizing an earlier ending. The focus is on Corey, and her doctrines, but also on her maturation as a commander. I then submitted a modified first chapter to the PNWA Literary Contest, and the first 3 chapters to the agent.

Setosha: I did this one in 2-3 weeks. Milt and I had a "discussion" about punctuation. Bottom line, I don't punctuate like a journalist. He decided to ignore my punctuation and concentrate on good English. But I'm a lot happier with Setosha than I was, and I did strip a lot of irrelevant things out of it.

Lexeon: I was stuck. It was 38 long chapters. I removed the parts pertaining to Boabdil, and tossed out some ideas of how I wanted to trim it to Milt and Colin. Milt suggested I look at doing what I needed to make Boabdil even more of a full book, and make it the third book of the series. Excellent idea! I have been working my way through Lexeon to see where I can pull Boabdil material out of it. I still might trim out some of the intelligence service material. We'll see.

Boabdil: see above.

Devlin's Story: I just posted chapter 60. Devlin didn't go to the US Virgin Islands. She discovered she can't 'cold turkey' her sex life, either. Sue had her baby (a boy), and Devlin's relationship with Danny is tapering off. One of the readers offered a number of comments, enough that I wonder if they've seen my notes (LOL). What will happen is that Devlin will gradually taper off her escapades, she will spend Spring Break in Arizona with Evan, and go to Emma's for "relief" when she gets back. Over the summer things will gradually slow down for her. Evan gets called up! I think I can do this in 3 chapters.

Three Valleys - Sammi: I'm stuck on Sammi getting ready for the ball. Chapter 25. I'll work through it somehow.

Different World: Last week I read DW Chapter 4 at Writer's Group. A bunch of changes. Let's see, Chapter 3 saw Elissa moving in, and discovering that all but the sitting room looked very 21st Century (thank you Eddie Bauer). At the end the police in New Essex discover a dead body from Seattle in the 21st Century. In Chapter 4 we learn more about the deceased, and in Chapter 5 (still in rewrite) the deceased is taken back to the PNW to be discovered. I'll have to reread some police procedures on what happens during an investigation.

Other Writing: I rewrote parts of Crosstime Cop to bring in more of Sir Oswald Mosley and making Great Britain more of a Fascist state. Then I rewrote the ending slightly, and did some tweaking. Jeff said it dragged a bit in the middle, and this is to sharpen it up.

I have also been working on a short story I want to take to B&N this coming Monday. It involves a Dryad who works for Weyerhaeuser.

Oh, plus I went to Conquest in early February to put on a game of King's War. Otherwise, not much gaming. Mostly writing or pretending at writing, or doing some editing for someone who asked me to edit.

But the good news? Baseball Spring Training is underway. Not that long to Opening Day!