A New(-ish) way to Plug

Yeah Good Idea Butt-head GIFfrom Yeah Good Idea GIFs

I've been reading a bit recently about marketing and all that jazz, and I came up with an idea that I'm sure has been done before, but I hadn't thought to try myself until just last weekend.

Yes, I'm still editing the novel, but bear with me:

"Four large Dornier aëroplanes..."

Photo by Clemens Vasters from Viersen, Germany, Germany, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 Just a little fun thing: I'm re-reading Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness because (I think) Justin and I are going to talk about it on our next episode of The Wordy Pair.

I guess I haven't mentioned our little podcast on this blog yet, have I? Oh well, there it is! It's funny and goofy and we talk a lot about writing and great stories.

Anyway, right at the beginning of Lovecraft's story, he mentions the airplanes they use in the story with the words that make up the title of this post.

Editing my first novel...

Just a little bit of me editing like a goober.

 

Well, phew. About a week ago I finished the rough draft of what (I think) will be the last chapter of my first novel.

I'm writing a longer story about the Misevelin Salvage crew, an adventure where they are trying to get to the bottom of a very strange event that has everyone worried: the appearance of an empty lifeboat near the orbit of Markledge (the planet where Aric & co. are based).

Cracks in the Walls at the Bottom (about 4300 words)

Image Prompt "The Pit," from Iron Age Media

I got a little too enthusiastic about this prompt and ended up plotting a three-part story that might end up at novella length.
However, the different parts are fairly self-contained, so here's a slightly reworked version of part of the second act, which works as its own action-packed short story. Enjoy!

Warrenton was the first vertical city on Sophra, a planet that had a clean oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but one too thin at the surface for humans to breathe unassisted. The Vertical City Project was designed to take advantage of the cool, stable crust of the planet and create a haven for humanity deep below the surface. Ten kilometers below the surface, the air was thin but sufficient. Fifteen down, oxygen partial pressures were comparable to Earth at sea level. At twenty, the air was thicker and made physically demanding jobs, like mining, easier and more efficient.

The massive excavation project had just crossed the twenty kilometer mark a few weeks ago. The main shaft was about half a kilometer wide and ample ventilation and modern lighting technology made the deep underground just as healthy as a day in the sun on Earth.

However, today there was a problem. One of the three main ventilators failed, and the other two shut down only a few minutes later. The elevators stopped working, and the network of radio frequency repeaters that made communication possible through and around the caverns went down. The city managers scrambled to get things back online. Without ventilation, the air down at the bottom of the city would be breathable for around three hours. Citizens living deep underground all maintained twelve hour supplies of breathable air, but the clock was ticking.

The Ultimate Drink (about 1500 words)

 

The Canteen literature prompt from Iron Age Media

Found in an empty hotel room in Nueva Helena, the largest city on the mining planet of New Montana.

I'm writing this because I can't explain the weird, sinking sensation I have right now. I feel stupid suggesting that this piece of paper might end up being my last will and testament. Not that I have much in the way to hand down, but if somebody finds this and I'm no longer around, I guess everything I have should go to my son, Jamie Soerman, who lives with my ex-wife Isabel on Wisdom, in the Artestren system.

I expect I'll be back in a few hours, and I'll destroy this paper and go on with my life, but as I sit here in this hotel room, I have this uneasy feeling in my stomach and I can't get rid of it.

Three months ago I was sitting at the bar in a little hole in the wall on Vitra with my usual glass of whiskey in front of me. The room was noisy, full of smoke, and smelled of stale liquor and all the regrettably human smells that come along with stale liquor. There I was, staring into my glass when a stranger pushed through the crowd of people to the empty seat next to me.

The Wonder of Out-of-Copyright Literature

The cover of the copy of Dracula I got from the Archive.

As a writer and a reader, I need a good source of things to read at all times. As I get older, I find myself with a growing desire to read the old classics, and it's easier than ever in history to do it. One thing I've been doing a lot recently is finding old gems over on the Internet Archive. You can find all kinds of out-of-copyright literature over there--great old books scanned in and ready for you to read.

 I've enjoyed putting in the names of old authors and classic books and seeing what's available. It turns out that for books that are old enough, there's a fairly good chance of finding a nice PDF or two that is actually easy and pleasant to read on a screen.

No Ticket (short story, about 3300 words)

The Station literature prompt from IronAge.media

All the old people say our town hasn’t been the same since the war. I can’t say for sure, ‘cause I don’t remember that far back, but looking at the bombed-out factories and scorched rubble that nobody ever managed to clean up in fifteen years... it at least seems believable.

Is that why I listened when that old man sat down for me to shine his shoes? Maybe because he seemed to know what he was talking about. Maybe that glimmer in his eyes told me that there was something better for me if I played my cards right.