FozzieBare: Blog

Who says FozzieBare can't finish stories!

(what, everyone? No matter)

Book 2 is already in the early writing stages. Once I get far enough ahead in chapters, I'll start posting it.

Stories updates:

Free Trader Mary's Dream has hit an amazing 100,000 downloads across its lifetime. I'm planning on a thank you graphic for the story. The three main characters shortly after they finally get together on Bastion. Now I just have to finish writing that chapter.

Rogue's Rules is coming as well.

And.. well, there's just so many plot ideas that I'm trying to restrict myself to finishing the ones I have before starting new ones. (Especially since the Wastrel and One-on-One have been giving me side-eye about getting back to them when I can)

One eagle-eyed reader (shade656) caught a grave continuity error in FTMD.

I named the last Imperator in a previous chapter (I won't say which, because it's going to be fixed, and I don't want it to spread any further)

In the six years since I had written FTMD, I had lost the setting bible I had written, and when it came time to give the Last Imperator a name, my mind had skipped over the part where I had named and given a rank to the Last Imperator. I swear I re-read my stories almost 50 times and STILL made that error.

The person responsible for the continuity error has been fired, the person responsible for catching the continuity error has also been fired, and if I fire myself any more in a blog post, I may actually BE on fire.

Oh, and thanks again to shade656 for catching it. You’re not fired. You’re being given a 10% raise in your salary.

The chapter is in the queue to be reposted with the Julian/Admiral as it should be for the rest of the story.

In the mean time (tries Jedi Mind trick) It has always been Julian Arden, Admiral and Last Imperator.

God. I feel so dumb sometimes.

Chapter five of the 4C's book (Champions, Craftmen, Campaigns and Catastrophes) is going up in a little bit (or is already up by the time you read this).

And while I'm unfortunately not rich enough to hire artists who could do it properly, I decided to do my best to generate a file showing the key moment you'll see at the end of Chapter 5:

https://imgur.com/a/0li3Sa5

We'll be finding out what happens when ThunderRoad realizes he can't beat the machine, so he has to beat the pilot behind the machine. And why the words "Ultra-Class WarMAC" should send shivers down every pilot's spine.

Chapter 6 will be introducing us to the other protagonist of the 4C's Book, Elias Voss. TheNumbersGuy: And why being right about other people being wrong is a dangerous, dangerous thing.

Other story news:

Planning work on Chapter 11 of Rogue's Rules has completed, and it's just a matter of converting bits and pieces of a conversation into an actual story. Arin Wolf has spent the last few chapters running for his life. Now he's going to realize he's not going to be allowed to run any longer, because the stakes are getting higher than any one Rogue ever wants to believe.

Free Trader Mary's Dream Chapter 21 is going through a last check to make sure it all makes sense story-wise. (I Know that somehow, someway no matter how hard I try, I'll screw up something, either in the copy and paste of sections as I work shop them, or just stuff like then/than.. etcetera.)

To answer the question I get more than anything (other than What took you so long?).. yes, One-on-One is still on my mind. I know where I want to take the story. I think I know how to get it there. But With three active stories to be posted, Book 2 of World of WarMachines in the plotting stage, I am spread awfully thin. I can say it it's no longer a matter of IF One-on-One continues, but When. I just need to find a space on my schedule to try to fit it into my activities so I can tell it. Matthew and Antonia deserve that much.

Oh. And speaking of upcoming stories? There's another story that I get asked about. The Wastrel's Dream still lives. I actually wrote out a precis of where THAT story's going. It does have to wait until Mary's Dream is finished, because it is in the same Universe and we will be meeting three characters from Mary's Dream ten years after the conclusion of that story. It's NOT Mary, Alex and Melissa however. More on that later.

Enjoy the summer weekend (if you're in the Northern Hemisphere) and as always, if you like an Author's work, please message them, comment on their stories, and VOTE. That's the best gift you can give an author like me... other than a winning lottery ticket. I could use that, too.

FB

First, the story updates:

Free Trader Mary's Dream has had Chapter 19 Posted. We're about to get Captain Alex and the crew back into space, and some very bad lawyers (ethically, not bad at their job) are about to learn that their are worse things than Ethics Board Complaints. (More on this in a moment)

Rogue's Rules Chapter 10: Has been submitted and is in the posting queue. Arin gets to travelling "The Vagabond's Highway", and we learn a very important unwritten part of the city's legal code. Plus he ends the chapter getting to meet his Auntie. Why does that sound so foreboding? Everyone LOVES their Auntie.

And finally: Starting Tomorrow, and will be posted over the next couple weeks, is a new 2026-written novella, with a background dealing with a science fiction MMO called "World of WarMachines". It's kinda like the webnovel "The King's Avatar" (If you don't feel like reading all the chapters, watch the Netflix series, it's rather good), but instead of your average Wuxia MMO, it has giant Science Fiction robots shooting and hitting each other instead. Which makes it officially 143.25% cooler. (This has been scientifically proven). It is a complete arc/novella/book, so those of you who are worried that I might have yet another story in limbo, don't worry. I made sure to complete this one before I officially announced it.

Now: Onto what's to come!

I have workflow-ed the remaining chapters of Mary's Dream. So all I have to do is follow the work flow and everything will be fine.(this, I will not guarantee). I will say this, I've already had to revise the workflow once. It looked all neat and proper on paper when I said "Ok, this is what Chapter 20 will contain". Then after I finished writing, and started (ugh) editing. I came to a sobering conclusion. It really needed to be cut in half. It had reached something like six thousand words by itself. Thankfully, there was a natural stopping point in the middle (Both parts needed to be part of the story, but each part needed its own chapter to breathe). I compared it to a farmer looking at a large field he needed to plow and get rid of some pesky gophers (There's always Gopher holes in these fields, trust me). Now the field has a narrow narrative road running through it to separate the parts where they can be tended properly.

The gophers have decided to move on to the next chapter I am writing, have acquired a boombox, and are dancing to "I'm Alright" by Kenny Loggins (kids, if you don't get the reference, look up Caddyshack. Book a couple hours to watch it.) That means writing work continues apace, and you should see more of it coming in the near future with those two chapters "In the can" and to be posted in the next couple days

I have done the same for Rogue's Rules Book 1: Arin can breathe easy. He now knows exactly what I'm going to do to the poor guy. Actually, he's not breathing easy.. but he IS breathing. That has to count for something, right?

World of WarMachines is the first Book in that series, and I've already laid out the lines of where the story's going in future books. You might even get to meet Kevin. Kevin's a fun guy. You probably know a Kevin or two if you play MMO's.

If it sounds like my brain is full of Daffy Duck like plot ideas bouncing around, off the walls going woo-hoo woo-hoo woo-hoo? You've pretty much nailed it.

I think I've figured out my problem with writing. The muse never left me, she just had despaired of getting all these ideas through the small door in my brain marked "To fingers" in an orderly manner. She's installed some new procedures, and while the plotbunnies are still all getting cozy and listening to Barry White on repeat with comfortable lighting, at least they're polite enough to at least take a number and wait their turn. Mostly.

She wants a raise. And vacation time.

Ok, sit around the learning tree with yer ol Pal Foz, as I share a bit of "Today I learned"

Ok, one of the writing exercises I do now at the end of a long writing session, and I know I need to stop rather than kick off a new chapter and have to take a break for a while a quarter of the way through (and risk the flow when I come back to it), is called the Good Night, Gracie exercise.

It's where you get a bit silly for five minutes, and put your characters in a ridiculous situation, play it through until the punchline, the ZING, and then end it with the call and response from the comic team of Gracie Allen and George Burns. You know the one, when Gracie Allen somehow, in her ditzy way, gets the better of George Burns with the punchline.. George just stands there, waits for the laughter at his being one up'd by his wife to fade a bit, and just goes "Say Good Night, Gracie"

To which she replies (literally) "Good Night, Gracie!"

Cue laughter, riotous applause and fade to black?

THAT NEVER HAPPENED. She never used that line.

That's called the Mandela Effect. It's a, well, for lack of a better phrase, hallucination or Belief that we've all heard something in Pop Culture because it SOUNDS real, but it's not.

When I was doing research for this blog, my mind was blown to pieces when I found out that while I wasn't of that generation, I had it ingrained in my brain that happened.

The things you learn every day. The reason I am writing about the Goodnight Gracie, is I just came up with the "sting" for the end of Book 1 of Rogue's Rules, which I have now plotted out the remaining arc, chapter by chapter. It is so gloriously over the top, with several callbacks to events and people I've mentioned early in the story, that it's hilarious. It's so good that I will probably make it the true ending of Book 1. By the end of the events, the main character, Arin Wolf will be blushing crimson and wishing for the Gods to strike him down then and there, just to save him from the embarrassing situation he ends the story in. What is it? I can't tell you, but it does involve a gaggle of women comparing notes on him. Not to yell at him though. More of a.. ahem.. critique and review session. Complete with recommendations. I was ABSOLUTELY giggling by the time I hit the "Say Goodnight Gracie" zinger

But for an example of one that I can share, in my story Free Trader Mary's Dream, it's well established the the sisters Erene and Daniella are the type who would act first, act precipitously, and think whether it was actually a good idea to act sometime next Thursday. So of course, when it came time to set up my Goodnight Gracie of the night, the start of the joke was that at a moment where explosives were needed, that Captain Alex would tell Erene and Daniella they couldn't be the one to set the explosives. Not that he doesn't trust them with things that go boom, it's just that he's afraid they would go straight from "Just about enough", skip "Overkill", and go straight into "1812 Overture, Dubstep Version". To them, there is no such thing as Enough Boom. Only MOAR BOOM

It's well established that Daniella and Erene are not the types to do the cool walk away from the explosion. Oh no, they'd walk away, watch the Kaboom, and start yelling at each other "OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT" and "THAT WAS SO COOL!" and be absolutely giddy, jumping around for at least thirty minutes.

So, for this pivotal mission where restraint is required, he puts Melissa to work in setting the explosion.

Never mind the 1812 Overture. Insert that classic gif of a nuclear bomb going off here.

Afterwards, a shocked Alex, a wide eyed set of the Terror Twins, and a serene Melissa walk to the edge of a 20 foot crater.

Alex looks at Melissa, completely flabbergasted.

Melissa just says "That was.. invigorating. I see why you like it girls"

Erene (in shock and awe): Wait, if you can be the Boom one, does that mean one of us has to be the responsible one every now and then.

Melissa just giggles quietly, and with a knowing grin, says "Oh, let's not expect Miracles.. girls"

Alex: I'm going to have to order more explosives for the armory, aren't I?

(It's always the quiet ones who get you in the end)

And then, Say Goodnight Gracie.(good night, Gracie!)

I think I'll keep the exercise. It's so fun to write.

And even though it apparently never existed, I'm still going to call it the Goodnight Gracie exercise. Because if it's not real, damnit it feels real.