Bad Blogger Struggles

I continued to struggle with being a bad blogger. maybe it is because i am not of the generation that is good with the blogging. Or perhaps i am simply not a chatter person.

Anyway The knitting of a long scarf and the continued Adventure of the Booth and Jefferson Family have been occupying my time.

I will not go to much into the long scarf because it is going to be in the present swap at the COAI meeting. So I cannot go into color or pattern. I can say that it will e loved by the clown that ends up with it.

I am getting very close to finishing the book that I have been working on. It is early in the story arc for the series. I am even not horrified by my crummy grammer and spelling. I do have to admit that the computer is finally getting to the point where it can deal with my lousy spelling. it is even marginally helpful on the grammer front. And heck ebooks have come to the point where it might be an option to deal my obsesive need to keep all control over what i am writing.

The story is set around the young Evangeline Booth. She is ten years old in the story and had what looks like magical control over technology. She of course is a time traveler who has been altered by powerful alien technology. Her family and future Husband are fresh off their adventure with the ancient race. Her future husband has been the target of evil time traveler so her adult self has been protecting him. Her future husband has become enchanted by his future wife even though he is a nineteen at the time. Evangeline has always loved John, her future husband, this is complicated by their ages in the story.

In the story they must save a planet full of former slaves that have been hiding out from their former master. They are of course the modern descendant of the ancient race that the Booths and the Jefferson had lived among. the antient race has given the Booth and Jefferson and Booth families the military hardware to end the crimes against their future selves.

This is complicated by the fact that they cannot radically alter the time line because they are also fighting with the evil time travelers. James Booth , Evangeline's father, is the Chaplain on the Uss The Sullivans. The Sullivans senior staff is killed in battle leaving Booth the Captain of the ship. Booth has to get to save the alien colony. If he can he use the as a cover to aid in the abolitionist movement that is starting to gain traction.

If he can hold the colony for two weeks a relief fleet will be able to push the pirates and slave traders completely off the planet. Of course Evangeline does some rash things.

I very pleased with the story arc that I have laid out. I figure it will take around thirty books to write the multi generational tale. The issue is that i have not been very happy with any of the individual parts I have written thus far. This books is four or five books in and i am happy with it.

As I ponder the story arc I am reminded that I have never actually tried to write the first book in the series. Well there is a kettle of fish I probably do not want to kick over.

The continued warping of my cultural preferences continues. the young people in the group have got me listening to Selena Gomez. She can sing an there are no two ways about it.



Well be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Meatloaf Does Funk

I just heard this meatloaf track from the early seventies. He apparently did Who is the Leader of the People. If is awesome. It was released ten years after he recorded it because he had some kind of argument with mo town records. Meatloaf and mo town records wow those words in the same sentence. I suppose there has always been something just a bit funky about Meatloaf.


Well this is another song that i owe to Craig Charles and his Funk show on BBC 6. It just does not get better than this. If you have not listened to this show is is better than a bucket of cotton candy with a cherry cola. That is good by the way.

I do think my tastes are beging to shift again. Once upon a time I would listen to BBC 2 almost all the time. The BBC 1 started creeping in there. Then there was the jpop thing. Now I am onto BBC 1 and BBC 6 this is crazy stuff folks. I imagine the Brits that read this might understand why that is strange. Still it is a shift none the less.

Something that i have always thought about is a soundtrack for various things. My own personal sound track is messed up to say the least.

With the Brigade now on it's own I have been thinking about what kind of soundtrack they should have. We are going to have to retool the show. I must say my time at second Baptist has given me a new love of Gospel. Even so I am not sure Gospel is quite right for the way that things are with the show. I am thinking about writing a new show. That would leave it open for what ever kind of music we want to do. Still it is something that we really need to think about. With the Army there was a certain type of music. It felt right and it was always there. If anyone has some ideas I am open to them.

Something else that I am wondering about is the soundtrack of the various character in my books. Various Character already have a soundtrack.

Brigadier Mason is mix Speed Metal and British Rock. Even thogh she is one of the good guys you get the feeling that she is capible of unspeakable evil if the situation requires it.

The newer Character Yamato Yukawa is easy she is jpop and jrock. She is a Versailles and Gackt fan with some Morning Musume and Namie Amuro thrown in there. She is adorable but also you get the feeling that she does not understand the necessity for morality.

This has led me to ponder some characters that I had not thought about.

There is Evangeline Jefferson. Now she is a time traveler who is a baseball fan. She is a huge Roberto Clemente Fan. the time that she specialised in was the late 20th century. So she is an eighties pop fan. There is a point in the story when she is listening to Curel Summer from bannanaramma.

There is her father James Booth. I am all over the place on him. I have his character wlell defined. I am just having some trouble where he should be. At the moment I have him listening to Jazz. He is also a time traveler that one used hi abilities to see BB King in a crummy hole in the wall club before he was BB King. So I know there is Jazz.

He is an uncomprimising man that has unblemished character. he and Mason are often going round and round about tactics. He is the jimminy cricket of the book on occasion. So there is that one that end. I would like to fill out his musical background. Also being a Salvation Army Officer he must play and instrument. I have established that he cannot sing. i am not sure what he should play,

The takes me to John Jefferson. I have not a clue on him. He is a black man that was raised in the US Navy by a father that was into mo town. i do have him liking Ray Charles. Still there is something wrong with you if you do not like at leaste three Ray Charles Songs. i am serious if you do not like that many Ray Charles Songs you have a character defect. By the way Mason only like two Ray Charles Songs.

He has lost his faith in the church but not God. I am thinking that he likes funk and maybe some rock and roll. I am not sure about him. In most of the stories I have been working on he is a background character. In the current story he is a young man of nineteen and and older man.

Well if you have any ideas I am up for them. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Chronos Sity

One of the fun things about working on The Final Voyage of the USS The Sullivans is Chronos City. This is the city the James Booth and his daughter Evangeline run their temporal operations from. The city is an unfinished alien city made of a living metal that was never activated or brought to life. They found the city and brought it to life along with a powerful war ship.

This city was mentioned a couple times in the novels and other short stories. In theory this city should show up when everything goes south in a couple of the books. For most of the series it is simply a ghost that most people do not know it’s true origins.

So it will be nice to work on this setting.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Not much Going on

There is not much going on here. There is a ton of snow on the the ground and some more coming. I have been playing around with my play lists on this site and working on the books. The play list thing is still not working right for me. Still it has improved from when it did not work at all. As stated before I am sure that a site of this complexity takes some time to get just right. Especially since it appears that who ever is doing it on their own.

The short story that proceeds the book is doing much better than the book itself. Still I suppose that goes without saying. The shorter something is the easier it is. The first chunk of the short story is around sixty pages. I thing the dialogue in it the first chunk is just right for one of those magna novel type thing. I am still not sure of the terminology for it. Still I think that I can make the magna book in the Microsoft publisher if I give it enough time and have a decent artist.

I have drawn out profiles of the star ships on the book. I am working on a chart that will show their relative size. Once I get that finished I think i will be ready for the artist to start work on the book.

On some level I am very nervous about it. On the word filled page i have complete control over the thing. When someone else it going to illustrate it I have no control at all. I have an idea in my mind what everything should look like. The sad thing is that I do not have artistic talent to transfer it to pictures. I can paint a half way decent picture. Still for some reason I can not really make a passable line drawing. I really do not get it. Well if I want to to go forward in any way I will have tog et over it.

Well just checking in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

JS Yamato

Well after a time working on The Sullivans short story I have added the Yamato to the story. In the original there was a time traveler who I only identified as the Japanese Girl. I left it open that it might be Katherine Mason or someone else. For the purpose of the original short story it did not make much difference. Still it will give the story more depth if the Yamato ties in with the books.

By the way for those that like pictures this is a line drawing of the Yamato. She is an advanced battle ship built by the nation of Japan. She is of course named for the Yamato that was sunk by United States Forces during the Second World War. The name Yamato also mean spirit of Japan or something to that effect. Her computer is highly advanced and self aware. She is program to approximate the behavior or a Japanese woman. She chooses to remain as a child in her avatar for for various reasons. Adding her to the first story give some interesting perspective on some of the other Character. The story centers in two character for the most part James and Evangeline Booth.

James is Evangeline's father and after many years is still mourning the death of his wife. James has an obsession with the origins of the Saucer People. He discovers on of their battle cruisers and secretly rebuilds it. His daughter is along for the ride. In this short story she is almost ten. At some point before the story Booth and his daughter went off to try and find the origens of the saucer people in their rebuilt battle cruiser they named the Sarah. The Booth discover that the Saucer People never went anyway. They were escaped slaves who created the facade of the Saucer People to wadge a war against their oppressors. The war was still going on and Booth could not talk about his finding.

James Booth was an officer in The Salvation Army who discovered that many of the Saucer People were Christian who felt they were members of The Salvation Army. For some reason this gets him in trouble with his superiors. Booth ends up as a Chaplain in The United States Navy.

The nice thing about adding the Yamato is that Evangeline is no ordinary child. She know that there is war coming between time travelers. This war will be fought around the physical and spiritual fate of the Saucer People. Evangeline can related to the Yamato because of the form that she takes. The hard part with the original story is that you have this kid, Evangeline, on a navy ship getting under foot. With another kid running around that is a star ship it give some extra inroads for Evangeline. Well I am still playing around with it.

The nice thing as that it will be finished sooner than a book would be. Good times

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

New first couple pages

Well I am experimenting with a new begining to the short sotry. tell me what you thinl

“Dad, I think we found them.” stated a young girl operating a computer station in a vast round command center.

“Are you sure?” asked her father who was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. He was a good looking man of a certain age. He was also laboring over a computer station.

“I am picking up the Dreadnaught Fleet and Saucer City. I cannot tell anything else until we are out of the Quantum flux field.”

The father looked over her readings. He checked them again and looked to his daughter.

“Alright Honey,” stated the man.

He hit a couple buttons and the dome they were under turned white. The young lady walked into the center that was dominated by a large table that looked as if it’s top was made of glass.

On the outskirts of the Wolf 359 System a blue ball of electricity formed a grew.

“We are near something?” stated the young girl as she watched a projection of the electric blue cloud appeared as a three dimensional hologram in the center of the table.

Their saucer emerged from the cloud and was greeted by weapons fire from the ship they disturbed. In the command center the weapon’s impact registered as little more than an alarm from the ship’s computer.

“They are using Liposean Disruptors.” stated the little girl.

“Raising the shields.” stated the man behind the first ring of computer stations.

Over the table a fleet of a couple hundred ships appeared. The man exhaled and the young lady whistled.

“That is a lot of ships Dad.” stated the young lady as weapons continued to impact harmlessly on their hull.

“Computer, make a note.” began the father. “The accepted date for the Third Battle of Saucer City is incorrect.” stated the man as he began to maneuver his ship away from a large red brown starship that was closing on their position.

“Eva, warm up the jump engines.” stated the man.

The young lady hit a button on the table and the dome that enclosed them appeared to become transparent. A large dirty ship made an attack run over their dorsal section. The blasts of yellow energy impacted their shields and dissipated without rattling the ship.

“I did not need to see that, Eva.” stated the man.

Young Evangeline made her way to a computer station across the holotable from her father.

“This is a rare opportunity to study the battle tactics of the twenty third Vral Dynasty.” she piped up unapologetically.

As Evangeline defended herself an attractive woman appeared in the center of the Bridge. Her dark ebony skin was young and supple over a muscular but gaunt frame. Her bleach white hair was braided with braids that terminated in a bun at the back of her head. Her ice blue eyes were startling to say the least.

“Can I be of some assistance?” she asked calmly as if they had not appeared in the middle of a belligerent fleet.

“You can tell me why Fleet Lord Stone gave us the wrong date.” stated the man dodging his saucer through a formation of Vral Cruisers.

“On this date the Fleet Lord knew there would be an invincible ship that would pass thought the Vral Fleet. He gave you a date and time that would facilitate that scenario.”

“I wish you people would leave Eva and I would of your war.”

As he spoke the saucer passed close enough to a ship above them to brush shields. The energy discharge fed back on the less sophisticated Vral ship. A geyser of fire briefly erupted from where their shield generator exploded.

“Your contribution to this battle is invaluable. Their attack on you gives away the Vral position. It is one of the first uses of a cloaking field on their part.”

“Dad one of the smaller cruisers.”

“I see it.” stated her father as he violently altered the ship’s course.

“The cruiser barely missed as the saucer twisted and dodged between two large cruisers. As they emerged from between the cruisers another ploughed into their starboard side. The saucer rocked gently as the forward compartments of the Vral Warrior collapsed against their shields. The saucer turned out of the impact heading for a gap in the fleet.

“Did they ram us” asked the man.

“Yes Captain Booth. Since their weapons cannot penetrate your shields they are ramming you.” stated the gaunt woman.

“Evangeline, shield strength.” asked Booth.

“Ninety nine percent, they barely scratched us.” she stated with a bit of excitement.

Booth watched the blue disk among the red ships on the holographic display. As he watched another cruiser rammed into them devastating their bow as their ship crumpled against the saucer’s shields.

“It didn’t work with the first one. Why are they still doing it” asked Booth looking for some advice from his cryptic advisor.

“That one was defending their Flag Ship.” stated the woman.

“What Flag …..” before he could finish his sentence the ship was engulfed in a fire ball. The bow of a massive ship appeared from invisibility almost as if it was trying to escape the first storm.

As their saucer emerged the alien bow was consumed by a brief fire ball as it claimed the rest of the ship.

“That Flag Ship.” stated the woman answering Booth’s question before he could finish it. While she turned toward Booth their saucer passed through another large ship destroying it as they went.

Booth violently turned his ship away from the void in the center of the fleet.

“Why didn’t you tell me that area was full of cloaked ships?” asked Booth choosing the targets he could dodge.

“You did not ask.” replied the helpful woman as they took out another invisible warrior.

Captain Booth managed to pilot his ship out of the fleet and jump back into the void of hyperspace.

“What was that about?” demanded Booth.

“Oracle, why did you let us destroy those ships?” demanded the Captain.

The attractive alien looked up at the dome that was now showing the electric blue space scape that was hyper space.

“We will now go into the past before the battle. Fleet Lord Jal will have proof that you are a time traveler.” Oracle turned to Booth and gave him a weak smile. She then turned back to the void.

“That is unacceptable. We killed thousands of Liposeans by accident.” protested Booth getting up from his station.

“It was thousands of them or tens of thousands on both sides. Even with the cloaking technology they would not have taken Oahu Minor. Half the attackers would have been lost. Oahu Minor would have been damaged. A couple hundred thousand Oahuans would have been killed. And if Fleet Lord Jal’s Fleet had been weakened it could have led to them losing the First Battle for Planet Five. Your actions were already part of the time line. They simply had not happened for you.”

“You can stop the prophecy baloney. I know that you are a time traveler Oracle.” stated Booth. He was now standing on a couple feet from her.

“Then my knowledge should be more invaluable since you know the means by which it was obtained. Your actions today will one day convince Jal that you are the General of the Lost Line.” the Oracle turn from the serenity of Hyperspace to the more annoyed Booth.

“My daughter and I will not play a part in this deranged game.”

“Daddy, they were going to kill and enslave our friends. They were bad people.” defended Evangeline.

“Honey, this is between me and Orry.” protested Booth trying to keep his daughter out of it.

“No Daddy, Oracle is right. They are evil they cannot win this war.” continued the young girl.

“That is it.” stated Booth putting his foot down without a firm reason.

“We are spending the night here. We will discuss if we are still going to interview Jal in the morning. I am going to bed before Oracle finds a new way to make us unwilling dupes in this crusade.” grumped Booth as he turned and walked off the Bridge.

“He will be alright in the morning.” stated his daughter.

The Oracle looked over to her as she still sat at her station. She smiled and gently nodded to the young Booth ad turned her attention back to the blue void of Hyperspace.

A post from jpop Asia

[color=limegreen]Something that I have been playing with is Asian Food. I have been working disastrously on Sushi. I have had the worst time with the rice. It is simply not been anything close to what I think that it should be. One of the bright spots of this exploration has been Chinese Food. I have the soba noodles and have been grilling stuff and vegetable with garlic sauce. This has been fairly good. It may not be the perfect representation of Chinese or Japanese Food. Still it is something more Asian than I am used to making and it is starting to come out right. The next Chinese food that I think I am going after if General Tso's chicken. That is one of my favorites int he shops. So I think it is something that I need to make at home.

Tonight I have made some chicken fried rice. It is cooling off a bit before I eat it. Still it tastes pretty good.

I will let you know how the Asian Food thing is working.
[/color]

[color=darkmagenta]
There is nothing on the Pa-paru Panda front. Still I will let you know if anything is happening. [/color]

[color=crimson]
Something else on the radar is The Final Voyage of the USS The Sullivans. This is really shaping up. Like I may have mention an artist it turn it into some kind of graphic novel magna type thing. I am not sure which it is. Still there you go. I am editing and reediting the short story that the thing will come from. I will be finished with the part that is going into the first one by the end of the week. I may even post it on line here. So that will be exciting.[/color]

Something else to mention is the fact that I have now added Lime Green to my color thing on the gizmo here. So there is some fine color coding for you all. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

A post from jpop Asia

[color=limegreen]Something that I have been playing with is Asian Food. I have been working disastrously on Sushi. I have had the worst time with the rice. It is simply not been anything close to what I think that it should be. One of the bright spots of this exploration has been Chinese Food. I have the soba noodles and have been grilling stuff and vegetable with garlic sauce. This has been fairly good. It may not be the perfect representation of Chinese or Japanese Food. Still it is something more Asian than I am used to making and it is starting to come out right. The next Chinese food that I think I am going after if General Tso's chicken. That is one of my favorites int he shops. So I think it is something that I need to make at home.

Tonight I have made some chicken fried rice. It is cooling off a bit before I eat it. Still it tastes pretty good.

I will let you know how the Asian Food thing is working.
[/color]

[color=darkmagenta]
There is nothing on the Pa-paru Panda front. Still I will let you know if anything is happening. [/color]

[color=crimson]
Something else on the radar is The Final Voyage of the USS The Sullivans. This is really shaping up. Like I may have mention an artist it turn it into some kind of graphic novel magna type thing. I am not sure which it is. Still there you go. I am editing and reediting the short story that the thing will come from. I will be finished with the part that is going into the first one by the end of the week. I may even post it on line here. So that will be exciting.[/color]

Something else to mention is the fact that I have now added Lime Green to my color thing on the gizmo here. So there is some fine color coding for you all. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Book Randomness

There was not much happening today. I spent a good chunck of the day on the bus roaming from place to place. SO I did some work done on new parts of the book. For those that do not know I always write what ever I am doing out long hand. Well I am switching to short hand. The thing I spent the most time on is the rewrite of the first short story.

One of the interesting things that I have noted is that the first short story ended right after the Pirate Base was destroyed. There was this build up about a prophecy that involves James Booth and his daughter Evangeline. Still it never played out. It was so long ago that I cannot remember what I intended all of this for. There is so much more that can be added. I am wondering if it is not a short story at all. I am beginning to think that it may have been a book that I never finished. That would be very strange.

There are some character from the first short story that are in Jefferson Fleet during the war with China during the series of short stories that take place ten years after the first short story. I am wondering if there was supposed to be a series of a couple small books that I simply forgot about. That would mean that the first series of books is actually the second. At this rate I am never going to finish these books.

Well that is all I have to ramble about the books for the moment. I am going to take the first book and beat myself with it until I am unconscious. It has been a long day and I do not feel tired. I am not sure why my body works like that.

Well be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.