LughIldanach: Blog

Don't get me wrong -- I value constructive criticism. But a couple of emails were especially welcome, as they were reader confirmation of what I was trying to accomplish. In all my SOL writing so far, I try for a sense of plausibility, even in science fiction. That means that I want them to have context beyond that of the characters.

It was great, then, to get an email that pointed out a typo problem, but also addressed the context of Green Berets for the Sexual Revolution: "I like the contrast between the academic, the erotic, and the
war-flavors."

It was also great to get a reader's confirmation, for the first chapter of I left my heart, and her vibrator, in San Francisco, that his cat also ate cantaloupe. It's good to feel that we've connected in something of a shared reality.

While I'll continue to consult with my characters, I'll probably take Green Berets a few chapters more, and then establish it as the first of a series to take place in a mildly alternate reality of a sexual and cultural underground in Washington, DC. It's nice not to have a budget in cleaning up a real venue! Nevertheless, the private erotic theater will have much nicer facilities, drawing on imagination but also memory, such as a very nicely staged theater in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

Apropos of the latter, I am a military historian, but I never understood a Marine chant until I had it shown on that Amsterdam stage:

This is my rifle

This is my gun

One is for fighting

One is for fun.

Use of the gun was thoroughly demonstrated.

More truth in this story than Green Berets, but both of them draw from real experiences. This isn't a do-over story. If it was, do you think I'd let a hung-over (ex)wife eat Eggs Benedict, with jellylike poached eggs?

Well, maybe there is some do-over in helping her through some of her fears of her own fantasies, with the exception of a couple that bothered me. I wasn't brought up Catholic, so I only observed the guilt externally. When I get to her giving up Catholicism for Lent, that isn't a joke -- well, it's funny but true.

Many, many thanks to a reader who pointed me to some errors that desperately needed correction, but that I could not find. The Prologue suffered from mixtures of first and third person, and I've posted a new version, with my apologies.

The characters continue to talk to me, sometimes pointing out things from my many years in DC. In Chapter 14, things become more clear that the theater is more than an upscale strip club. No, the Illuminati are not involved, but some other groups are happily conspiring. This story is definitely to be a part of a series, as sexual and organizational forces flow.

I'm thoroughly enjoying writing Green Berets and thinking of sequels. It's a break from "Few", my first Swarm Cycle story, which I'll pick up again soon.

There are going to be things I just don't see until a chapter is posted. When I misplaced a markup command and put half the story in italics, there was no question about putting up a corrected chapter.

But what about continuity errors, or when I look at something that isn't quite clear? At one point, a character gets keys for a door that is later opened with an electronic key card. I'm not worried about that.

At the start of Chapter 11, Gerri's act starts, and then Carol is suggesting to Curt that he might not be used to the club schedule and there was no dishonor in taking a nap. Now, I knew that the rest of the delicious Gerri's act wasn't described because an exhausted Curt fell asleep. The characters knew.

I'm not sure if the reader would infer this. Is it important enough to go back and change this, or other passages where my self-criticism says "this isn't clear?" Would it create more confusion for those readers who read the earlier version?

Looking at my last post, I didn't mean to suggest that Carol didn't have thoughts. I meant that the character, and for that matter Curt, are taking on lives of their own in the story. When the characters start speaking to the author, the writing is going very well.

Now, that isn't to say that the real-world Carol, the model for the character, shared a lot of thoughts with me in the real world. I will say that she was a cheerleader, but, while she stayed in her social set, she was among the few that always was courteous and kind to the nerds. In the pictures from the 40th high school class reunion, she has changed, but not completely -- although I'm amazed that some others look very much the same.

Many of the story action is drawn from real events and people from the seventies, but I'm not going to be obsessive about it. I was vague about how music was being produced in the apartment. There won't be the full Internet, but I will have some computers more available than the large room systems I used. I may take some liberties with the Vietnam War, but the chances are that only experts will see them.