Richard Freeborn

Fiction and Non-Fiction

One Small Step

October 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This past Sunday, I happened to catch a headline that SpaceX were planning to launch the fifth test flight for Starship.

When I saw the headline, it was about halfway through the launch window, so I flipped over the the SpaceX site to see what was happening. It was the first time I’d seen the real time video feed of re-entry using Starlink terminals on the capsule, and it was impressive. There was imagery all the way from re-entry to splashdown, even through the traditional “communications blackout”

Even more impressive was the capture of the Super Heavy booster. I missed seeing it real time, but watched the re-play several times as the booster plummeted down, the rockets fired and it drifted down and was snared by the chopstick arms on the gantry.

There were so many things that could have gone wrong on this initial attempt, but the capture was executed perfectly.

Each test flight is one small step to achieve the ultimate goal of using Starship to send people to the Moon and Mars, and bring them back.

I am of an age now where my participation in such a mission is a non-starter, but I sure hope I’m around to see it happen.

Aligning Timelines

October 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This past weekend, I was looking at some of the Scrivener projects I haven’t touched in a while. Some were easy to deal with based on the project name alone. Others not so much.

What did I mean with a project named Disciple? It took a while to bring up on my screen as Scrivener needed to convert from an older version before displaying the contents. That alone, gives you some idea how long it is since those files got looked at. Not surprisingly, the story was about the disciples of Jesus, after the crucifixion and resurrection.

And I wrote it as a screenplay, which isn’t a format I’ve used for several years. There were some good scenes in there, and maybe one day I’ll go back to the idea, more likely as a novel.

The next file was more interesting. It’s a historical novel set in South America during the wars for independence from Spain in the early 1800’s. As I read through the notes and story fragments, it all came back to me. For some reason, I’ve never had a clear vision of the different timelines in my head – the story timeline and the historical sequence of events. That’s not been a problem with my stories set in Ancient Babylon, but there were some pivotal events during those wars for independence that obviously have to be covered in the right order – not least Simon Bolivar’s crossing of the Andes in June and July 1819.

It didn’t take much reading through my notes to realize the story and historical timelines were out of sync. It’s not an immediate problem as I have several stories I want to write before I come back to this one, and reading through gave me ideas for another story in the same historical period.

This makes it all the more important that when I do start the writing, both timelines are in alignment. So, I opened up Aeon Timeline and started dropping events and dates into a new Aeon project. Ten minutes in, I started reorganizing the story events. Those small changes have made the story move faster, and now I’m rethinking my 2025 production plan.

A Production Backlog

October 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Over the past few years my production cycle – that’s the work I do between finishing the story and pressing the publish button Amazon, Kobo etc. – has been pretty ad-hoc. As I finish a story, I think about editing, covers, and sales copy.
That wasn’t really a problem when I was publishing a novel a year.

This year it’s been two novels, and I have on my desk a novella and a short story collection waiting to finish that production cycle, with another novella planned to finish by the end of October, and a third one by Christmas.

Those two published titles I mentioned last week still aren’t published!

I had an inkling this might be a problem when the manuscript for The Corpse in the Courtyard sat gathering dust for nearly two months before I got to the final read through.

It’s a problem I’m glad to have. It means I’m starting to hit some of the word count and project goals I’m aiming for. It also means my production schedule needs more planning than just an ad-hoc set of activities.

More of the Same

September 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This last week has been fairly quiet. I wrote most of a Jacob short story with no real idea who the killer was, or how it ended. That was until late last night. I have to make some changes for consistency but nothing too heavy. My expectation is to finish the story tonight or tomorrow.

There’s been a lot of publishing energy going on as well. I’m about a third of the way through the final read on a novella. The cover and sales copy are all done so publishing will be soon after I get the corrections put into the manuscript. In parallel, I found several stories with the same protagonist. I finished the cover and sales copy yesterday.

The introduction is next on my to-do list after the Jacob story. By the end of the month, I should have two more titles available.

A One Year Streak

September 16, 2024 /

I wrote earlier in the year about how 2023 was a lean year for writing. What I didn’t add at the time was one of the activities I put in place to improve my word count.

I’d been reading Julia Cameron’s book Write For Life, and as she does in all her books, she advocated Morning Pages. I tried Morning Pages several years ago, struggled with writing three of 8.5 x 11 pages in a timely manner every day, and let it drop.

Last September, I was ready to try anything to get back into a regular writing rhythm, so I sat down and set a goal of three pages within thirty to forty-five minutes. It has now been a full year, and I haven’t missed a day. There have been days where I only managed one page, usually because of a time crunch, and occasionally because instead of letting go and just writing, I tried to force words onto the page.

Most days, I stay within the time limits I set myself. Some days, I find myself looking blankly at the page, and not quite sure where the thought or idea was going? I don’t think that’s a symptom of age as I’ve always been a bit like that.

Has it helped my actual writing? I have to say an unqualified yes. I blew past the 2023 word count in early June, and found Pages a useful place to work out questions or issues I have with a story. It’s not outlining, more a discussion with myself about what I want to happen next. This might be a page or more of discovery, or a dozen bullet points on ordering events across the next three or four chapters. Sometimes what goes into the actual story is close to those musings. Other times, they trigger something and I’m off in a different direction. Either way the process has helped my writing.

Julia Cameron recommends a weekly review and the first question is “how many days did you do Morning Pages this week?” There’s an implied expectation that at some point you will miss a day of Morning Pages. Last September I expected a miss to happen. So far it hasn’t and I hope to say the same this time next year when Morning Pages has become a two-year streak.

Rethinking Plans

September 10, 2024 /

This week was supposed to be a vacation week, and in some ways it still is.
I had planned maintenance work around the house and two or three rounds of golf. Or maybe only one if I play as badly as I have done the past few times I’ve been out.
All that changed over the weekend. It has been wet and miserable here, and everything was damp. And, as I learned to my cost while walking the dog, slippery.
My right foot skidded on a curb. My left ankle rolled and there I was lying on the ground with the dog looking at me, and wondering why I was down at her level.
The ankle hurt, and swelled up nicely, and a day later, still swollen but with some beautiful colored bruising, I was at the Urgent Care for an examination and x-rays. I left with a support boot, a referral to the orthopedic doctor, and a suspected broken bone.
Over the last two or three days, it hasn’t felt broken, but any walking without the boot quickly becomes uncomfortable.
Hence the rethinking of plans.
There’ll be no golf this week, but I should get to some of the small maintenance items I’ve been avoiding for a while. I think I’d have preferred the golf!

Thrill Ride 7 is nearly here

September 3, 2024 /

Make a wildfire your ally. Tread softly with the French Resistance during WWII. Extract an informant from the dangers of the Babylonian streets. Sail the Atlantic, float down a river, or take a fishing boat far out to sea. And you can always fight the Phoenicians with the least lucky Viking ever born.

My short story Making the Way Home is included in this issue of Thrill Ride Magazine.

Thrill Ride 7 arrives on September 21. You can preorder your copy on amazon at:amazon.com/gp/product/B0CWCPJZM5

Keeping a Streak Simple

August 26, 2024 /

Some years ago, I stopped using electronic apps for tracking tasks, to-dos and appointments, and went back to a manual organizer based on Ryder Carroll’s Bullet Journal Method. None of my pages are as colorful or attractive as the examples in his book, and until this week, I never really understood the concept of collections.

The lightbulb moment came when I was looking at how best to record a new daily activity which requires noting a specific item and then some reflection notes on that item. In some ways it would be easier to track this with an app, and I nearly went that route. That was until I remembered my schedule over the next few months won’t always have me near a computer or tablet.

So it was back to some internet searches and Ryder Carroll’s book and some thinking about what I wanted to get from this activity. The one thing I didn’t want was a big overhead. No matter how enthusiastic I am at the beginning, if it takes a lot to set up the documentation, I lose interest really quickly and the activity goes into that heap of other activities I’ve started and allowed to drift away.

In the end it was simpler than I expected. I have a two-page spread for each month, and decided to note the item against the day of the month. Beside the item, I make a reference to the page where I wrote the notes and reflections so I’m not constrained for space on the notes.

So far the streak is just starting. I’ll report back next August if it’s still going.

Some Thoughts on History

August 19, 2024 /

Sometime in the middle of July, I started the book Gangsters of Capitalism by Jonathan M. Katz. I bought the book because it looked to be about the Marine General Smedley Butler, and his experiences leading up to the time he was invited to join a proposed coup against then president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I had two reasons for picking up the book. First was to learn more about Butler, and his apparent involvement with the coup. Second was to get a deeper understanding of the series of small actions in the Caribbean at the beginning of the twentieth century referred to as the Banana Wars. I knew a little about the Banana Wars from a visit to the Marine Corps Museum at Quantico some years ago, but outside of the documentation in the Marine Corps Archives, I hadn’t found out much about the Banana Wars, or the planned coup.

In the back of my mind was a novel, or series of novels about Marines in the Banana Wars with a central character present in all the books. I fully admit the idea for this came from my reading of W. E. B. Griffin’s series The Corps and his main character Ken McCoy. I even wrote an opening chapter about the 4th Marine Regiment deploying to Dominica from New Orleans.

Katz’s book jumps from relating one part of Smedley Butler’s service to that same area today – the Philippines, Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti etc. – and documenting the failings and excesses of the US as an Imperial power.

I haven’t yet read enough beyond Gangsters of Capitalism to form a proper opinion on Katz’s view of the history he tells. However, there was enough there for me to pause and think about the Banana Wars series. If I write the stories without reference to the excesses that took place, and which were apparently condoned all the way to the White House regardless of its occupant, I’m painting a false picture of the times. A picture that’s likely unjust to everyone involved.

Dean Wesley Smith reminds me regularly that writer’s are, at heart, entertainers. Staying anywhere close to reality means these stories wouldn’t be entertainment. So, for the moment, the Banana Wars idea is on indefinite hold.

« Older posts

© 2024 Richard Freeborn

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑