By continues, I actually mean it’s near completion. With a bit of elbow grease, I should have my edit done this weekend, and then I package the novella, Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships off to my editor for thrashing. Most of my changes have been minor, and I’m rather pleased with the product. I’m hoping that second set of eyes will provide me the feedback to make this the best novella in the series so far.  So, as promised, with each update comes a snippet to whet the appetite.  This one comes from the short story, Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships.

“Gănkuài!” yelled our decuria second in command Jemadar Er-hong Kim when we entered the gate of the castrum; she was a Chinese honey badger with a tongue like a machete who had taken a particular dislike of me. As we kooshed our camels and dismounted before handing them over to the young camel-wallahs who would rub them down and feed them in the stables, she was on us in a heartbeat snapping out orders and abuse while focusing her particular brand of advanced leadership skills on me.

“Wángbādàn! You repo’t to subeda’, he have wo’k fo’ you!” She grabbed me by the ear, a most annoying and painful habit amongst the Legion leadership, and dragged me wincing and whining towards the Headquarters tent. “Bái chī, guĭlăo,” she muttered as I protested weakly and jogged beside her while trying to wrestle my ear from her iron grip. “Subeda’ fucking stupid to want fèi wù like you fo’ wo’k,” she added with a malicious pinch. As we made our way across the muddy maidan amongst the burly guffawing jawans who pointed at me and elbowed their chums in their mirth, I could not help but note through the waves of pain and humiliation the unusual amount of activity and purpose that had stung the normally sedate inhabitants into a new sense of action.  Kim delivered me through the flap of the HQ tent, then stalked off shrieking into the wind as I rubbed my ear and stood in the gloom looking pathetic.

“Losh, ye’ve a face like a skittery hippin, Sikunder. Dinnae stand about lookin’ the glaiket dilly-daw, get cleaned up in yer best uniform. I hae a job just fer you.”

That was by way of greeting from our decuria commander, Subedar Angus Motshwega, known to all as MacShaka the Tartan Zulu, who stood four square, hands on hips and glowering like a Kansas hanging judge in scarlet shalwars and tight fitting blue sharwani coat. Behind him there was no end of activity as a clerk and the scenarius havildars chatted over compu-pads and maps; each a contemplative face filled with purpose and dare I even add, worry?

“In forty-five minutes,” MacShaka added as he stood before me and poked me in the chest – right where I’d been shot whilst with him two weeks before, damn him – “I want you and a half dozen o’ those horn-idle chai-wallahs tae hae the mess tent prepped fer a meeting. Tea, coffee, and a hookah; and make sure the damned place is swept out. Ye’ll be there during the meeting making sure the damned hither and yon limmers are on their best behaviour before the guests.”

“Who’s coming?” I asked as I rubbed the still livid bruise on my chest.

MacShaka poked my chest again and snapped as I winced, “Michty me, Sikunder, dae as yer fucking told and stop playin’ the damned gomeril already! I’m tae damned busy tae haver wi’ some peely wally wee bauchle. Sae shut the fuck up and gaet on wi’ it, ye damned yíwàng de bā!”

Well, my Chinese and Glaswegian were poor, but I figured from the tone that I’d crossed the line, and still massaging my chest, I grovelled satisfactorily, made my way out of the tent, and jogged to my scenarius tent to wash and change. Thirty minutes later I stood in the mess tent in fresh shalwar trousers, cotton kameez shirt, and tight fitting cobalt blue sharwani coat. I had even forsaken my trail worn pakol beret for a misshapen black turban over my freshly shaven head and with scarlet sash festooned with Khyber knife, 9mm pistol, and tomahawk and boots blackened, I looked very much the typical jawan save for scrubbed pink skin and pathetic wisp of beard. Six chai-wallahs were with me – children between the ages of ten and fifteen that carried out every menial task in creation as they waited for the chance to join the fighting ranks of the Legion at the age of sixteen. The eldest of the six was willowy gap toothed girl named Jindan Chandrakala who bullied the remainder with kicks and blows as they swept the tent, laid out a hookah, then ground up coffee beans, boiled water for tea, and laid out the decuria’s best tea and coffee service – a group of tiny porcelain cups on a well polished brass tray.

“Namastey, sahib, and don’t you worry,” she said as she guided the efforts of the normally unrepentant rogues that made up the dozen or so wallahs we kept with the decuria, “we will be ready. A chai-wallah behind every chair and not a hair out of place. Jaldi karo!” she added as she kicked one idle Chinese boy in the ass to motivate his sweeping efforts.  As the children finished their work she lined them up to inspect them with all of the gravity of a rear admiral of the fleet. She straightened a turban here and adjusted a knee length sharwani coat there, she stepped back, allowed that gap toothed smile, and reported, “Accha. We are ready.”

I had stood for the ten or so minutes, idle and useless as the activity surged around me. Now I asked, “Do you know what is happening?”

“Mēhamānōm, sahib. Guests,” she added as I stood bewildered.

The tent flap opened and in strode MacShaka resplendent in is best uniform with Er-hong Kim in tow. He stood in the centre of the tent, looked upon it, the wallahs, and myself, then nodded. “No’ bad,” he growled. Kim said nothing, glared like a gorgon and left. “Now,” MacShaka barked as he turned on me. “In a few minutes or sae, our guests wi’ arrive. There’s a helicopter coming in from Conomarra with the colonial governor and Amir Shao Zhi Cheung of the Legion.”

“The Amir?” I asked in shock. I’d never seen the big man himself nor heard many talk of him.

“Aye. Dinnae gaet a’ moist eyed, Sikunder,” he snapped as he spared me a withering glance. “Play the puddock now and I’ll turn ye over tae Er-Hong Kim for a week.” Horrified at the thought of being set upon by that Han hyena, I bowed and toadied him for the next few minutes as the wallahs arranged chairs and set to making coffee, until he bade me, “Shut the fuck up, a’ready, ye hither and yon bampot!” then stormed out.

With MacShaka gone, I took the next few minutes to lecture my chattering wallahs with Chandrakala standing cross armed and stern and looking more like a Regimental Sergeant-Major every minute. I warned them what their normal shenanigans and skylarkings would bring if they dared to try them, saw them dissolve into a mass fit of giggles, and realized how ridiculous I must appear in my drooping turban and pink skin. Had my beard been a bit thicker, I might have made for a more imposing creature, but with wisps not much thicker than cat whiskers, my stature was thoroughly diminished in their eyes. So we puttered and waited and presently, the deep ‘whap, whap, whap’ of the contra-rotating blades of a helicopter emerged from the chatter and we all fell silent. In the minutes that followed, the sound grew in volume until the tent walls began to shimmer from the downdraft. Then, as the helicopter landed in the castrum’s inconsequential maidan and instantly powered down its ear-splitting whine, I had Chandrakala place the wallahs while I waited by the tent flap.

MacShaka threw the tent flap aside and I bowed with obsequious abandon as he strode in followed by a plumpish black woman in her fifties with the airs of a duchess, whom I assumed was the Governor of Samsāra. Following her came a stooped owl-eyed buffer in spectacles and a wispy white goatee and baggy Legion uniform whom I guessed must be the Amir of Ajax Legion. A fourth figure entered – a devilish looking character – a young and handsome Han Chinese in a black Tang jacket beautifully embroidered with silver dragons, and billowy black silk trousers. He was motioned to a chair by MacShaka who then spared me a curt nod. I gestured the wallahs to work and they moved quickly, pouring coffee and lighting the hookah, all in a conspicuous silence that unnerved me as the foursome looked at each other and said nothing. In an odd diversion, the Governor, named Mary Jefferson, stirring her tea languidly gave me an odd look and asked MacShaka, “A new recruit, subedar?”

“Aye, sahiba,” MacShaka growled as he lifted his demitasse in his massive paw. He looked like an unwilling gorilla playing tea. “A Canuck.”

Yes, it’s true. After many weeks of work, writer’s block, and miserable musing on my blog, the first draft of  Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships is complete.  As I plug away on a reread and initial editing, I think I’ll share a bit as I go along. A few scenes to whet one’s appetite as I prepare this for the editor and then publication in the coming weeks. SO let’s begin with a scene from the first short story, Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships.

“Wake up, jawan!”

From a short blissful somnolence that had begun at the end of the midnight watch – about ninety minutes all told if I didn’t count the shivering in my sleeping bag as I fought the biting cold of early spring on Samsāra – I was wrenched awake by the brutish application of a boot to my side. I flopped like a fish as I grappled with the zipper of my sleeping bag, then, whilst still recovering from the depths of my slumber, I blurted out with thoughtless abandon, “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

Silence – which only infuriated me more. I angrily pushed my way out of my sleeping bag, launched myself out of my two-man hootchie dome tent, and scrambled to my feet. Standing in the frosty pre-dawn darkness, my bare feet turning blue in the snow and only dressed in woollen long underwear, I found myself face to face with Muneer Al-Shahid-Mahmood, a towering mercurial naique – the United Nations Off-World Legion’s equivalent of a corporal – and the second in command of our ten member scenarius.

“A pleasant voice brings the snake from its hole, Mashallah,” he said smoothly, his arms crossed over his long grey beard. “Make coffee,” he ordered, then he took a step closer, grabbed me by the ear and gave it a painful wrench. “Do not speak to me like that again, jawan,” he whispered. His voice was soft, but there was the unmistakable hint of further violence if I was to be so foolish again as to offer this man sauce.

And to think he had been a mullah at one time.

“Aye, Huzūra,” I replied meekly using the preferred honourific and bowing in my most sycophantic manner to appease the beast. I was still mostly asleep and terribly angry at the abuse as I crawled back into my hootchie to dress.  Waiting there lay my particular friend, Usman Khan, an impish sixteen year old Jim Hawkins with a tomahawk and hashish pipe. He chuckled unfeelingly as I crouched in the frigid darkness and fought to pull on my knee-length kameez shirt and scarlet shalwar trousers.

“You must be careful, dost,” he said as he lay back with his fingers laced behind his head and assumed the comfortable smugness more often found in the British House of Lords. “There are many who would do worse to you if you spoke to them that way.”

“I gathered,” I replied as my teeth chattered in the cold. I gave the little villain a nudge. “Come on, get up. Give me a hand with coffee.”

Minutes later we were crouched near a small camel dung fire that threw off little heat and light as a stiff frigid breeze whipped our scarves and numbed our fingers. We began the labourious process of setting up the camp stove and hand grinding coffee beans in a burr mill in order to brew Turkish coffee for the scenarius. This was a particular requirement and an art form that I could ignore only at my peril. While Usman poured water into a brass pot which he put on the stove, I ground the beans and measured out the sugar to create orta şekerli, or medium sweet coffee; the general preference of our group.  It was a process as burdensome as passing a bill in Parliament and one that caused as much acrimony due to the many variations that could be employed. Be it Lebanese, Turkish, Romanian and even Greek, individual tastes by the jawans in our scenarius were demanding, but if Muneer Al-Shahid-Mahmood had the morning watch, then it was Turkish and that was it.

I remember pausing for a moment as the enormity of my situation once again settled upon me. Beyond the thin flickering dome of light that surrounded Usman and myself lay the isolation and stygian darkness of the Serberor Campus. We were many kilometres from the nearest hint of civilization in a wilderness both hostile and empty. Truly I was a humbled youth as Usman chattered in his native Pashto and I ludicrously ground coffee beans to a fine powder on a frigid open plain in the UN colony of Samsāra some twenty light years from Earth.

With my edit almost done, I will shortly be moving this over to my editor who, with Big Red in hand, will begin the next brutal phase of the creative process. So with the draft complete, I can sit back for a small breather to putter in my garden or mac Uisdean baile-fearainn as I call my back yard farm. Then I move on to my next project, an urban fantasy called, Aeonghus Dubh.

I must admit to being rather surprised when people inform me that they do not remember their dreams. There are many friends of mine I’ve chatted with, a palaver or two over coffee in the morning before the drudgery of the day, whom when reviewing the musings of the unconscious mind, they suddenly announce with curious indifference that they don’t ever remember what they dream about. Some of them will come back with vague feelings initiated by their dreams – happiness, unease, sadness, but they also lack that crystal clear recollection that can so easily prove to be the popular water cooler distraction in a work day.

As you might begin to glean from this missive, I remember my dreams quite well. I often have vivid recollections, be they uncomfortable, sensational or absolutely ridiculous. Whether the ability to remember is linked to both my lucid waking imagination or my unconscious one is irrelevant. Irrespective of either, the imagery stays - etched into my thinking and more often than not, a topic that can inspire giggles when it chooses.

Oddly, I will first admit to having reoccurring dreams. Not nightmares, mind, but certainly tell-tale markers that maybe there’s stress in life, that I’m unhappy about something, or I’m realizing the implications of having a teenager. The first is about being late. Truth be told, I have a bit of a phobia about being late, drummed into me by successive Chief Petty Officers in the Royal Canadian Navy (I do the same now that I’ve reached that dizzying rank) and the reoccurring dream I sometimes have is about running grossly and irremediably late. Usually it is to work, and if my wife is the cause (as she most often is) I’ll upbraid her worse than a recruit or a delinquent sailor. It’s an odd dream – one of those  if something, even the most obscure can go wrong to make me late, it will. A series of catastrophic events that cascade into a maelstrom of tardiness, I often wake up angry and annoyed (and somewhat relieved) and find myself a bit put off for the rest of the day.

The second is an odd little dream about showing up to a university class only to find out I have to write a final exam (clearly a hold over from my university days) The kicker is, for some reason, I never showed up for the class at all during the year and the completion of my degree is dependent upon it. This often changes into a befuddling cram session that last a few minutes of dream time followed by haphazard guesses to the answers on my test. Did I pass? I never find out in my dreams, but like the dream of lateness, I wake up perturbed and wondering why on Earth I would have taken a class in math as I pursued my degree in Military History.

Not all dreams follow this path though, for I find my wandering imagination can come up with the truly bizarre. Take for example my dream of sitting beside her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II enjoying a Justin Bieber concert during her Diamond Jubilee (I assure you, she had a smile, but I did not. The idea of sitting through a concert with the ‘Biebs’ is no joy. I’d rather step on Lego) My wife had a long chuckle about that one. My friend was most amused when I told him the dream of Jimmy Carter dressed as a Hussar who, while trying to mount his steed from a balance beam and fighting a bad hip, hopped about for a moment before falling off and dying of a head injury (sorry Mr. President. If you read this, it’s not personal) The state funeral that followed was spectacular, but the imagery of the aged president with his Hussar pelisse and sabretache still raises a chuckle. There are the dreams about my hopelessly annoying jackass of a cat, Hector, who will sneak outside at a moment’s notice to lead me on a merry chase; the oddly prescient dreams of sailing on a minesweeper when it appears a sea posting is in the offing; and the curious  imaginings that I both still smoke and still have hair (both left me many years ago).

In the end, I thoroughly enjoy my dreamscape, as perplexing as it may be at times, and I truly pity those that are bereft of the joy of seeing Jimmy Carter in a fur busby cap or tight-fitting dolmen jacket hopping on a balance beam.

Sweet dreams!

I would imagine you are beginning to note the theme here – be it that continuous harping on the writer’s block or the distractions that I put forward as a means to cure it. That failure is the common thread that combines these dissimilar thoughts should also not be lost on my readers.  Yes, once again in my effort to snap a persisting touch of writer’s block, I packed up iPad and Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships and headed for the beach for a few days of sun and the enjoyment of my favourite Muse, Mother Nature.  Well, she was as inspiring as always, and as mercurial as she provided us with sun, wind, fog, and cold nights. That was what I was looking for though – well and toss in a sunset or two, coffee on the beach in the morning, and a glass of Merlot around the fire and surely my brooding writer’s persona, so mysterious and unreachable, would bubble forth in an explosion of inspiration?

Well….no. Not really.

Truth be told, however, I did have some success, just not the keyboard mashing explosion of productivity that has the novella moving by the quick march to my editor. Yes, I suppose I should not complain too bitterly about the solitary page I created, for it is a lofty step up from the past few weeks.

Of course, my Muse is an attractive creature – a bewitching head turner of Junoesque proportions. That in itself proved to be a challenge; for my Muse did indeed turn my head and like a jealous wife, my inspiration to write sat cross armed and cranky for only a few moments as I longed for Mother Nature’s beauty before flouncing out of the room and engaging in retail therapy at the mall. Yes, as my writing withered in jealousy and brooded on which embarrassing photo she should post on my Facebook timeline, I sighed over the sunsets so sought after – losing myself in the colours as they moved through a limitless palette. Then there were the beaches – China Beach with its  soft sand and Muir Creek with its fossils and fog. Two lovely Sirens that beckoned seductively – enticing me with their West Coast wonders. Of course the winding, narrow creeks and Douglas Fir stands with grass and mud replete with deer and cougar tracks was its own beguilement, as was the glasses of Merlot around the crackling fire, the piping hot Colombian coffee during the sunrise when it seemed that I had the world to myself.

Then of course, there was Ajax.

Ajax was ever my companion – when family still lay abed, it was he that joined me for my coffee. It was he that lay contentedly beside me by the fire in the gloaming with a glass of Merlot, and it was he who was at his silliest in the sand and waves of the beach. With that distraction, just how could I even think of writing?

So maybe Mother Nature is not the Muse I need for writing. Maybe it’s a Starbucks, the Passport Office, or even just an hour on the deck in the sun. Yes, Mother Nature, as a Muse, going to you for inspiration to write is tantamount to looking at a Victoria Secrets catalog for marriage counselling.

Thoroughly enjoyable but maybe not such a good idea.

So, I had every intention to write this past weekend. Inaugurating our new trailer, the family was packed up, and my iPad loaded with Tongs, Tartan, and Tin Pot Battleships so that I could finish the final short story and then send it off to the editor.  Our arrival in Tofino, just up from Pacific Rim National Park, in a massive storm no less with gusts up to 100 kilometers per hour, suggested I just might have the time to write, being hunkered down as I was with beer and furtive looks at the falling tree limbs. Mother Nature, however, is a restless creature, and the wicked, harridan mood gripping her that afternoon faded to a disposition more suited to Boadicea or maybe Messalina.  The iPad put aside, I enjoyed the wide sandy beaches with my friend, Ajax, midst the fits of wind and rain that pounded us for the rest of the day.

The following morning, I must admit that all pretense of work was finished.  A glorious breakfast completed, my son and I tried our had at surfing – Pacific Northwest surfing mind, where  rain, snow, and sleat all fall in the two-hour block of paddling again wind and waves in water no more than 10 degrees Celsius.  We went out again in the afternoon, and managed finally, an evening around a crackling campfire with a bottle of wine. The following day of sun and surf and beach combing further undermined my efforts to break this writer’s block.

So now here I sit, as I plan for another attempt to sit at the beach and write. That short story, The Cattle Wallahs, that continues to mire itself in my mind, is still unfinished despite my good intentions. This time I will try much harder, or maybe, fail much quicker!

Oh those best laid schemes…

Yes, and I had one as March break approached. Outside of some R&R (possibly some surfing of all things) my thoughts had turned from the book launch of Jupiter Rising (which has enjoyed very very modest sales but that may be another post) back to my next installment of The Scarlet Bastards series, Tongs, Tartan and Tin Pot Battleships.  I’m mostly done the first draft of this novella, plugging away at a final short story in it called The Cattle Wallahs when I was first struck dumb by some writer’s block (an annoyance I was slowly working through) then followed by a heavy bout of the flu.

I’m not much for writing when sick – being far more comfortable wrapped up in a blanket in front of the TV, but I did try on occasion to soldier on. The Cattle Wallahs short story, however, has been particularly difficult for some reason. It’s not much of a spoiler if I state Sikunder is given a task to move cattle from Alba Saltus north to the town of Ophir as his decuria is transferred from its old home of Ophir Castrum. The fact he meets a wandering university student from California or that he is nominally taking orders from a 15 year girl are beside the point.

Still, even with cattle rustlers from the Tong’s Black Hand, the story is just not writing itself as many others have in the past. I guess it’s that post book launch malaise – you know, the months of work and prep, the weeks of advertising on Facebook, Twitter, blog, and everything else, then the final days of work on Amazon and Smashwords to publish and then the big day followed by……deflation. Once it’s out into the world, the work is done save for the inevitable marketing that must follow on.

So, as my flu begins to subside and I dig my desk out from beneath a mound of Ricola wrappers, empty Kleenex boxes, and assorted mail that needs looking at, I’m trying to refocus onto this last short story. Once it’s done, it’s off to the editor with the hope of a late spring book launch for Sikunder’s latest adventure. Then comes the daunting task of novella number four, The Cardinal of Gleann Ceallach.

My author interview by Ira at Love Hate Poetry.

Sunday, March 03, 2013

The day is here and I have launched my book, Jupiter Rising, on Amazon.com. The much anticipated sequel to Europa Rising continues from the dramatic discovery of a mysterious hyperspace jumpgate and a pair of alien ships in the wastes beyond Jupiter.  A horrific battle between the alien ships and Terran forces ignite a disastrous war that focuses on the conquest of the Jovian system, and the eradication of the Terran presence.

The fears of generations are realized in a brilliant flash in the shadowy wastes beyond Jupiter. From a mysterious array appear two alien ships, their vicious intention all too clear as they fall upon a pair of Terran ships battling over ownership of the enigmatic discovery.

             They come from Gliese 581g where, in 2008, a message of peace was sent. They are an avenging force, unleashed to deliver a terrible retribution upon a trusted industrial magnate and secret liaison who is now determined to steal their technology. The aliens are powerful, technologically advanced by many decades, and determined to end the  human threat.

             Captain Ian Walker, recently retired from NASA and at the end of a career that saw him removed from his last command in disgrace, is called back because of his rare combat experience and is given command of the elderly monitor, NASS Centaurus.  Captain Corina Sacramento, her crew exhausted and her ship worn out after completing a seven month asteroid survey for the South American Space Agency is waylaid from her return mission to Earth and redeployed to the Jovian moon of Himalia. Commodore Sorscha Cameron, former commander of the European cruiser, Indomptable, is given a field promotion and the impossible task of holding the Jovian System.

             Their mission is simple – they are to join the United Nations task group assigned to protect the Terran interests in the Jovian System and shield the excavation of an alien spaceship buried in the ice of Europa. As the Gliesiuns amass a powerful force, and the  spacefaring nations of Earth, Luna, and Mars argue over control of defences, all three must fight feelings of self-doubt and fear to rally their task group to defend the future of mankind in the outer solar system.

Jupiter Rising, sequel to Europa Rising, will be available on 1 March 2013 on Amazon.com!