Charlie Foxtrot's Blog, page 7

WIP : Opening page

I’m trying something new on the blog now, sharing early drafts from one of my two works in progress (WIP). This first sample is literally the opening page for a novel which is currently at 25k words covering the first five chapters.

Can you imagine being born a god? Not the One God, but a god; able to assume an aspect and wield attributes over man and nature. Of course, you can’t, because gods aren’t born, they are made. This is my story.

— from “Divine Discourses – Introduction”

I watched the man on the monitor, reading in his lavishly furnished apartment. Part of me was resentful. The view from his couch could have been a master’s painting with its fiery orange and pinks behind the spires of the city with just a hint of blue on the horizon from the ocean. Millions would kill for the view alone, but we had showered more than money on the home of the man I watched. His apartment had only the best. Modern appliances in stainless steel; clean white cabinets floating above the dark grey granite countertops; a genuine leather couch and matching chairs. The program had literally spared no expense in ensuring his comfort.

Of course, many would say he deserved such creature comforts. Some would argue. Personally, I was caught in the middle, but it did not hurt myself or the project to provide such opulence to the program’s heroes. The fact was that giving them apartments we owned and controlled gave us certain advantages, including this vid feed allowing unobtrusive observation by a phalanx of psychologist and behavioral experts. If our six heroes had an observable difference from the others in the program, we had to learn what it was.

I was almost ready to ask what I was looking for when the man on the monitor stood and threw the reading tablet from him to smash against the sleek fireplace next to the doors to his private balcony. The violence of his action was shockingly unexpected.

What do you think? Does it make you want to read more? Drop a like or comment and let me know what you think. All feedback is appreciated.

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Discussing Excerpt Six | Marketing Mondays

One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’ve started posting excerpts from my books that highlight some of non-erotic elements to show characters and conflicts that hopefully appeal to the more mainstream readers. These excerpts will be shared on Mondays and I’ve created a tag “MarketingMondays” to track the postings.

As the excerpts run, I’ll watch sales numbers and see if they are helping.

I’ve come back to Book One of A New Past with yesterday’s excerpt. I chose the second scene of the book for this excerpt since I believe it captures the sense of adventure the main character has to embrace. It also sets some of the stake for his long-term goals. It’s been nearly a decade since I penned the first version of this opening scene and I still think it does its job to set the stage for the longer story. I had no idea it would grow to a nearly a million words to bring this opening to a solid conclusion!

Here are a few obvious questions and answers for this excerpt. If you have additional question I can answer, please leave a comment on this or the excerpt posting.

Are you anti-arab based on the villains in this scene? I don’t believe so. I don’t like to think I’m anti-anything, other than anti-ignorance. When I first posted part of this chapter online, a reader took exception to the use of “Social Democrat Party” in the opening scene of the chapter. They felt I was calling US Democrats by that name when the real reference was to the Social Democrat Party of Germany. I shared this link with them and suggested they read more history. Paul’s character is of a similar mind and his attitudes are shown through multiple scenes in the books.Why pick Arab or Muslim sympathizers if you aren’t against them? This is a bit more nuanced. I am against people who don’t think for themselves, and Paul shares that attitude. In the modern world, this lack of self-critical examination and thought is typically attributed to three broad groups; religious fundamentalists (Christian and Muslim), science “deniers” of any religion, and celebrity cult-followers who believe whatever their Hollywood hero espouses as being the truth. Unfortunately, all three of these groups are susceptible to being guided and influenced easily. I chose religious fundamentalists of Muslim persuasion for this scene simply because it was something that readers could relate to, unfortunately.How could a scientist be allowed to experiment with a fusion reactor in an urban university setting? Okay, that’s a fair question. The paper that inspired Paul’s approach to fusion was advocating for a low-temperature and low-pressure approach. I don’t know if that approach would actually work or not, and can’t find any follow-up papers or research indicating it has been proven, but it became a good plot approach to give Paul something with very high energy output that he could theoretically build in a simple university setting. I also envisioned a world where high-power fusion had not been successful, and where a political environment ensured it never would be pursued.

I hope this excerpt whets your appetite to read about Paul’s journey back in time and his hopes, dreams, and efforts to change his new world. The entire New Past series is available on Amazon, Smashwords, and other epub channels.

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A New Past’s explosive beginning

One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’m sharing some excerpts from my series, A New Past to share some of the “non-erotic” elements. This excerpt is from chapter one of Book One and covers the opening events that send the main character back in time.

Something startled me awake. I sat up on the couch and looked at my watch. Three hours. The accumulators should be fully charged. I stood and then heard a muffled thud. It sounded like someone was trying to bust open the door into the lab area from the Physics building. I heard another thud, this time accompanied by the subtle sound of glass cracking. They were trying to break in.

I hurried back to my workstation and saw that everything was set to run. I quickly typed a command and set the output to stream directly to my public cloud account. I locked the workstation as I finally heard the wire reinforced glass of the door shatter. I could now hear their voices. Husky, male, with a lilting, foreign tongue.

“Quiet. The rent-a-cops may ignore the bribe if we are too loud.”

“Do we care? We need to destroy them all for allowing this abomination to take place. The power of the sun is Allah’s, not man’s.”

I grabbed my pad and card and headed deeper into the lab. Maybe I could hide from them long enough for the system to fire and confirm my results. The safety cage around the test machine might keep them out for long enough. Quickly, and as quietly as possible, I entered the code for the cage door, opened it, and slipped inside.

“Look at all this wasted crap.” A voice declared. It sounded like they were near my workstation.

Crash!

“Those are just monitors. We need to destroy the computers he is using and his test set-up, not just monitors. Spread out and let’s get busy. Mullah Azim wants this done quickly. We must destroy this work and the man who would dare this work.”

I tucked myself back under the test bench and looked at my pad. The firing sequence had started.

“Someone is in that cage!” I heard. I pulled my foot in, cursing myself for not hiding better.

“Come out, old man and you will not be hurt.” They must think me an idiot.

“Ari, open that door.”

Boom! A blast shook the air, and I heard buckshot scatter against the wire cage and back wall.

“Idiots!” I called. “You’re shooting at a fusion reactor that is about ready to fire!”

Another blast hit the cage door, and then suddenly I was washed in incandescent white light and all sound ceased. My last thought was, “So this is what being inside a fusion explosion is like.” 

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. Read more to see how Paul created his fabulous car and more by checking out Book One of A New Past available on Amazon for Kindle.

Book One is also available via Smashwords and other channels.

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Writing Exercises: Leveraging Ulysses

After drafting my writing exercises workbook (available for free to subscribers), I started using a new writing tool called Ulysses. This isn’t a review or plug for the app, but simply an exploration of how I’m doing my own writing exercises within it and some of my observations about using this new writing tool.

While trying out Ulysses, I became intrigued with its ability to set goals on a per-project basis. This felt like a prime opportunity to move my daily writing exercises from MS Word (or even plain text) into something a little more structured. I’m happy to say, my set up works, but there are some opportunities for improvement in the tool itself.

My set up:

A project. I started by create a project in Ulysses called “Writing Exercises”. Ulysses organizes writing into projects. Inside a project, you can have groups of sheets where you write. The concept is it makes it easy to reorganize by rearranging sheets within the group and groups within the project. For example, you can have a collection of scenes in a chapter, and easily reorder them as you work.

In addition to your own groupings, each project has an “Extras” group that includes a folder for templates and items you trash from the project. I copied each of the exercises from my workbook into the templates folder as individual sheets. To keep these templates hidden from the Ulysses exporting process, I made each template a “Material Sheet“.

My plan. Next, I created a group inside the project for August 2024. This is where I’ll collect my practice efforts. I created a schedule for the remainder of the month first, and assigned which exercises I would do each day.

The feature I wanted to play around with in Ulysses was that ability to set a goal on a project. I tried various settings and landed on at least 250 words a day.

The first exercises I did was a free write for fifteen minutes. It was 600+ words long, which was much too long for most of the exercises. 250 words seems like a good setting for now.

I can now cut and paste the needed parts of the template for any given exercise into the sheet for that day and start typing. A nice feature of Ulysses is how it shows statistics on the sheet you’re working on. For this exercise, I can easily see its 211 words, including titles and the template prompts:

You can also see statistics for a group or project overall simply by selecting them and looking:

If you’ve met your goal on the project, you see the green circle at the top level acknowledging the goal for the day.

What could be better:

I’m still learning all of the capabilities of Ulysses, but here are few immediate opportunities for improvement:

Timed goal. It would be nice to set a goal based on time rather than words or characters. I believe I’ve reached a nice compromise for my exercises, but feel a timed goal for free writing or other project types may work better.Templates. The templates folder is nice, but you can’t (or I don’t know how) to make true templates. I’d like the ability to create a sheet in a project group from a template, similar to how you can create a document in MS Word from a template. I understand the MS Word use-case is more about formatting and styles, which Ulysses tries to de-couple from your writing, but I’d appreciate that sort of feature. Until then, copy and past works.Links. I’d like the ability to link to a sheet within the application. It would be nice to link my plan to the sheet that carries the exercise for the day. Conversely, I’ve moved one of my works in progress into the tool and would like to link and cross reference some character notes to them in the narrative. Since Ulysses does decouple style and output from the text in the sheet, making a non-exporting link should be easy.

Ulysses has a lot of other features and use-cases beyond my writing exercises. I’m still in the early-days of adopting it, but I am enjoying it so far. I have one major writing project I’ve migrated into it. It has helped me add over 20k words to that novel since importing it less than ten days ago. Many other writers have shared how they use the tool. I’ll continue exploring its usage and limits and let you know as I learn and grow.

If you are using Ulysses and have any tips or tricks I should try, drop a comment here. Otherwise, good luck, and have fun writing.

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Discussing Excerpt Five | Marketing Mondays

One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’ve started posting excerpts from my books that highlight some of non-erotic elements to show characters and conflicts that hopefully appeal to the more mainstream readers. These excerpts will be shared on Mondays and I’ve created a tag “MarketingMondays” to track the postings.

As the excerpts run, I’ll watch sales numbers and see if they are helping.

My fifth posted excerpt was for subscribers only since it covered one of the explicit scenes from Cosimo, a Families of the Empire Story . I debated whether to include a spicy scene in my MarketingMonday’s effort, since I realize it could be off-putting to some readers. Also, by making it available only to subscribers, it’s unlikely to have sufficient reach to improve sales.

So, why did I do it?

A couple of reasons. The excerpt is the opening scene from chapter seven of the book. This chapter was first published online as a stand-alone short story entitled “Seventh Day”. It won the Short Erotic Story of the Year 2023 in a reader based competition. I was surprised the story was nominated for the Clitorides competition, let alone that it won its category.

I also think that a lot of the erotic science fiction being published recently is focused much more on the female point of view. That may be due to the target audience those authors are trying to reach or it could be something else, but this scene and book is written from Cosimo’s point of view. As such, it tries to portray a man’s view of the sexual acts described. Your own reactions to Cosimo’s feelings and thoughts may differ.

Finally, this chapter is pivotal for the characters’ development as it addresses Lexi’s family’s involuntary indenture and her father’s arrest for treason, a crime punishable by death in their culture. It also explores Cosimo’s perspective on his family’s role in the empire and their responsibilities in dealing with crime.

I’ll forgo my standard FAQ format for this discussion, since the obvious questions are answered in the prior chapter of the book, or within the remainder of this chapter. I encourage you to read the story and judge for yourselves. Cosimo is available on Amazon, as well as Smashwords and other ebook channels.

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Cosimo: the ‘spicy’ excerpt

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Writing Exercises: Making a Plan

This is part of my writing exercises workbook, available to subscribers.

Part of exercising is creating a schedule and sticking to it.  Writing exercises are the same way.  The exercises I’ve outlined are intended to spark your creativity and help develop the habit of writing on a regular basis, even if the writing becomes throwaway work.  You need to exercise that creative muscle.  To help with this, here is a sample plan you can use as a starting point:

Day of Week (or date)Exercise / GoalAchievementMondayCharacter Sketch (Exercise 1) TuesdayLocation Sketch (Exercise 3) WednesdayFree write (15 minutes) ThursdayCharacter Sketch (Exercise 2) FridayLocation Sketch (Exercise 4) SaturdayRest Day (do something fun!) SundayFree write (15 minutes) MondayCharacter Sketch (Exercise 2) TuesdayConflict Sketch (Exercise 5) WednesdayFree write (15 minutes) ThursdayPlot Outline (Exercise 6) FridayShort story (Exercise 7) SaturdayShort story (Exercise 7) SundayRest Day (do something fun!)    

The workbook available for free to subscribers includes this as a blank template you can tailor to your own needs. If you have other exercises you enjoy, include them (and share them in the comments). Maybe you like to write a haiku on a regular basis. Add it as an exercise to your schedule.

If you can’t commit to and exercise every day, then don’t. You can use the Achievement column to track your actual exercise progress. If you run out of lines, add more, or celebrate completing you plan and then start a new one. Remember, practice leads to the habit of writing, which is what all of these exercises are about.

Good luck, and have fun writing.

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Discussing Excerpt Four | Marketing Mondays

One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’ve started posting excerpts from my books that highlight some of non-erotic elements to show characters and conflicts that hopefully appeal to the more mainstream readers. These excerpts will be shared on Mondays and I’ve created a tag “MarketingMondays” to track the postings.

As the excerpts run, I’ll watch sales numbers and see if they are helping.

My fourth excerpt is from Cosimo, a Families of the Empire Story The scene I selected is the second chapter of the book and sets the stage for much of the culture that is explored in the remainder of the tale. I chose this scene since it is the first look into the new world the colonists are establishing. While it skips past a lot of detail on the turmoil and challenge facing the colonists, it provides a brief glimpse at two hidden families who are pledged to work away from the limelight to preserve and protect the fledgling empire they have birthed.

For anyone who has not yet read the books, there are likely a few obvious questions I can answer. If you have additional question I can answer, please leave a comment on this or the excerpt posting.

What was in the syringe Ayako used? It’s implied to be the compound Ayako developed and used on the colonists in the prior chapter to ensure the mental conditioning remains in place to follow the original colonist leadership’s plan.Why would the first emperor need the conditioning? This whole chapter will possibly be expanded into another book in the future. For the scene, I wanted to show that the two hidden families who watch and judge from the shadows are a little ruthless in exercising their powers. Since Ayako and Kira discuss what will become of the Emperor’s daughter and son-in-law who tried to usurp power, they want to ensure Talia follows through on the plan they have in place.What’s the club Ayako is considering? Ayako is Cosimo’s distant ancestor. She creates the Amorperdita Club which permeates the future empire as a place to see and be seen. The club organization is run by Cosimo’s family and forms the network of eyes and ears they use to keep tabs on the aristocratic and high guilder families that may attempt to subvert the empire. When does the real story start? The book has a prologue and three chapters that set the stage for the main story. All told, the first 7,000 words of the book are stage-setting to get the reader enough context to understand the world Cosimo emerges into and the tale that follows. The book covers approximately 200,000 words, so the stage-setting accounts for about 4% of the overall tale.

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Character-Driven Erotic Science Fiction: Cosimo, a Families of the Empire Story

One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’m sharing some excerpts from my stories to share some of the “non-erotic” elements.

Cosimo, a Families of the Empire Story is my most problematic title. While it has explicit content, it also has what I feel is a strongly character-driven plot. The character of the story lives within a culture in the far future. Part of the culture includes voluntary and involuntary indenture. Couple this with some of the explicit scenes and situations, and the story falls into what some consider troublesome topics such as slavery and trafficking. However, this is the problem with labeling works in the worst-possible light. I did not set out to write anything endorsing current-day beliefs or problems. Anyway, here is a non-explicit excerpt for your enjoyment. This is chapter two of the book.

“She’s coming around,” Kira said as she looked down at Talia Dennison, first Emperor of the new empire.  

“Talia, do you hear me?” Ayako asked softly, leaning toward her long-time friend’s ear. 

“Uhmmm,” Talia mumbled.

“Can you move your right hand?” Kira asked.  

The patient’s hand twitched.

“Good.  Now your left.”

Her left fingers fluttered. 

“Excellent.  You’re past the worst of it,” Kira said.  “Now it’s just going to take time for your body to shake off the affects and for you to get some strength back.”

Ayako sat back and then glanced at the tube feeding nutrients and medicines into the emperor.  She held up a small syringe and looked at Kira, the former chief medical officer of “Man’s Hope” while keeping it out of Talia’s sight. 

Kira nodded.

Ayako slipped the needle into the socket on the tube and slowly pushed in the plunger.  Kira leaned close to Talia’s ear and whispered.  Ayako handed Kira a plastic and metal band which the doctor slipped onto Talia’s head.  Two pads rested on the patient’s temples, and she pushed an activation switch.  Talia’s eyes fluttered and then closed.

Kira and Ayako sat back and exchanged a look.

“We were lucky,” Kira said.  “If I hadn’t gotten my team here as quickly as I did, we would not have been able to revive her.  I can’t imagine what would have happened if Darius had succeeded.  We would have a short-lived empire then.”

Ayako nodded.  “We would have dealt with him, but the trust built with the people since landing would have been broken.”

Kira rubbed her temples and sighed.  “How will Talia react when she learns that her loving son-in-law tried to overthrow the emperor?  How will her daughter react?”

“Her daughter will be spared but cannot be trusted with any power.  I’ll take her away with me.  Her grandson will come to the capital to be with his grandmother.  He will inherit the mantel of the Dennison line when Talia does finally pass.  Hopefully she’ll have enough time to get him trained.”

“Barring an accident or another attempt on her life, she should be good for twenty or so more years.  Of course, once she recovers and understands the depth of her family’s betrayal, she may step down.”

“No, we can’t allow that,” Ayako said.  “Maybe in a decade, but not in the short-term.  Our culture is starting to solidify with the academies and collegium.  People are generally happy.  The other colonies are faltering, as we expected.  We have to remain strong, or the world will devolve, and our race will be at risk.”

“What will you do to Laura?” Kira asked, curious how Talia’s daughter would be treated.

“My son needs a suitable mate.  She will be tamed and used to benefit the empire,” Ayako said.  

Kira looked up sharply.  “Your research?”

Ayako nodded.  “Laura Dennison will be my final test subject.  Her husband’s life is forfeit.  I’ll not waste resources on him.  For our friend’s sake, her daughter will be indentured and bound to my son.  My family will continue through the bloodline of my friend’s daughter, but she will have no power to threaten us ever again.”

Kira nodded.  “I’ll take genetic samples from Darius.  We don’t want to lose any bloodlines.”

“Take them yourself, today, Kira.  Tomorrow, Ksogi will do his duty in closed session with the Senate as witness.  We will then reinforce their oaths to the empire.”

“It seems barbaric, but I understand.  I’ll bear witness as well.”

Ayako nodded; her lips set in a grim tight line.  “Barbaric, yes, but required.  We need to remember so many of our shipmates who have slipped into barbarism.  Might makes right in their world now.  We must be better, to strive and stabilize our culture and world,” she said passionately.

“Our civic institutions will survive, since we stopped this plot,” Kira said.  

“But the plot was born because we do not yet have firm social structures and norms,” Ayako said.  “We need accepted social interactions that will prevent the aristocracy from only interacting amongst themselves.  If we did not hear from Conner about Talia’s health, we would not have been in position to act.  A simple conversation based on a random observation tipped their hand.  It was happenstance and luck.  We need to create social structures that will tip the odds of that sort of luck in our favor.”

“What are you thinking?  It’s hard for my people to monitor the empire from orbit with the communications restrictions we’ve adopted.  How will you manage random conversations across millions of people?”

“I may have an idea,” she said.  Ayako considered their world.  Perhaps she had an idea.  She wished Kgosi was still alive to provide his counsel.  Maybe it was just a dream.  She would not know if she did not try.

“I think I’ll open a very special club here, and in my hometown.  We will cater to the rich, ambitious, and powerful.  I will create the social scene needed for us to watch from the wings and be prepared.  Can I count on your support?”

“Always, my old friend.  Now tell me more about this idea and the vision for your club.”

“Less of a vision than an idea at the moment.  It will be exclusive.  It will be private.  It will be both where people want to be seen and where people know they can meet for a private rendezvous.  It will be discreet.  It will cater to people’s senses and desires.”

“And be filled with your eyes and ears?” Kira asked.

Ayako nodded. 

This chapter is the shortest in the book, and sets the scene for much of the culture examined in the remainder of the book. For subscribers here, I’ll also be posting a short excerpt of a more explicit scene next week, so you can draw your own conclusions on what the story entails. Cosimo is available on Amazon, as well as Smashwords and other ebook channels.

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Writing Exercise 7: Draft a Short Story

This is part of my writing exercises workbook, available to subscribers.

This is a longer exercise, depending on your writing style.  However, it is not intended that you try to write a full, polished, ready to publish tale in a single setting.  It’s about getting your creative juices flowing and bringing in several of the other exercises for a complete narrative.

Begin with “It was a dark and stormy night…” or one of the other opening lines provided below and write a short story.  Focus on creating a vivid character or two, interesting locations with details that will engage the reader, and a strong sense of plot and conflict to move the story along.  

Opening Lines1. Once upon a time…
2. It was a dark and stormy night…
3. In a galaxy far, far away…
4. Long ago in a land called…
5. It was a hot summer day…
6. On the edge of town…
7. As she stepped off the bus…
8. Once upon a starry night…
9. Far beyond the reaches of space and time…
10. In the heart of the city…
11. Deep within the woods…
12. At the stroke of midnight…
13. In the quiet stillness of the morning…
14. Beneath the shadows of an ancient oak tree…
15. High above the clouds…
16. On the eve of war…
17. Amidst the bustle of a busy marketplace…
18. At the beginning of winter…
19. Underneath the glow of a full moon…
20. As dawn broke over the horizon…

Since this is a longer exercise, give yourself time to complete it. Once complete, review your narrative relative to the other exercises. Is your conflict clear for the reader? Are there interesting and compelling character traits described? Are those traits relevant to the story? Do important objects or settings come to life in the tale? Can you clearly identify the climax of the plot? If you aren’t certain of the answers to these questions, your reader won’t be either, so it may be worth revisiting the exercises and performing them again.

Feel free to post on your own blog and link back here so other readers can learn from your own experience.

Good luck, and have fun writing.

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