As some of you already know, I’ve been starting each chapter of the Grimnoir Chronicles with a fake historical quote. This is my little way of throwing in world building without all of that extra messy writing.

Here are the original ones.

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/a-bit-from-another-fiction-project/

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/more-quotes-from-current-writing-project/

Here are a few of the new ones:

My cavalry unit was camped eighty-two kilometers south of the Podkamennaya basin that morning. Despite driving the Green Cossack army back for nearly three months, the Nipponese troops had withdrawn earlier in the week. Their retreat was unexpected, but a welcome chance for us to regroup, tend to our wounds, and fatten our fighting bears on the local reindeer herds. We discovered the reason for the Imperials’ retreat around breakfast. A blue light appeared in the northern sky, rising from the horizon as a pillar, until it disappeared into the clouds. Scouts estimated the disturbance was near the position of our main infantry encampments. Kapitan Kurgan had a pocket watch. He said the disturbance started at exactly 7:00. Flocks of birds and large numbers of forest animals retreated past our camp in the direction opposite the light. At 7:14 the light had grown so bright that it was as if there was a second sun. Then the noise came, like the sound of artillery. The earth shook. All of us were knocked to the ground. The sky split in two and the light turned to fire. The fire grew until the entire north was fire and it came toward us. The hot wind came after the thunder, snapping down all the trees of the forest and flinging our tents. The temperature increased until it was unbearable. Our clothing caught fire and our bears went mad from the pain, turning on their Controllers and rending them. I was thrown approximately two-hundred meters into the river. The water boiled. That is all that I recall.   

Leytenant D. Vasiliev’s animated corpse. Testimony to the Tsar’s Investigative Council on the Tunguska Event. 1908

MAGIC LEADS TO TERROR – City Firemen were unable to contain the FIRE that ripped through a Mar Pacifica estate on Sunday evening until there were only charred remains of the home, belonging to famous big game hunter L.S. Talon. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY was made once the DEADLY flames were extinguished. So far, SEVEN human bodies have been recovered from the scene. Local residents say that there was a great commotion and much GUNFIRE before the conflagration spread.  RUMOR is that Mr. Talon, was a supporter of MAGIC and was himself an ACTIVE. He has been missing since Sunday and is believed to be amongst the DEAD. 

San Francisco Examiner, 1929.

We now have over a thousand confirmed cases of individuals with these so-called magical abilities on the continent alone. The faculty has descended into a terrible uproar over the proper nomenclature for such specimens. All manner of Latin phrases have been bandied about. Professor Gerard has suggested Grimnoir, a combination of the old French Grimoire, or book of spells, with Noir, for Black, in the sense of the mysterious, for at this juncture the origin of said powers remains unknown. He was laughed down. Personally, I’ve taken to calling them wizards, for the very idea of there being actual magic beyond the bounds of science causes my esteemed colleagues to sputter and choke.

Dr. L. Fulci, Professor of Natural Science, University of Bern, Personal Journal 1852

Why did I join the 1^st Volunteers? That’s a tough one. My older brother, Matt, he just liked to fight, figured Germans would serve good as any. My little brother, Jimmy, he was simple. He went wherever we went. Me… I was the one that liked to ponder on stuff. Roosevelt did like he did before with the Rough Riders. My daddy was a Rough Rider in Cuba. President Wilson didn’t want him to go, but General Roosevelt wanted to prove that Actives were good for the country. Got himself killed in the process. Never did like his politics, too Progressive for me, but I’d follow that man into battle anytime. Lousy politician, great leader… Sorry. The question… Why’d I go? I guess I felt a duty to show that Actives could be the useful… that we could be the good guys… I was a fool.

Jake Sullivan, Parole Hearing, Rockville State Penitentiary 1928

My wife left on a road trip to visit her family and took the kids.  At my new job, I haven’t accrued enough time off yet to go with her. So I stayed home.  If you’re used to three screaming children, then an empty house for a week is really odd. 

Since I had no distractions, I vowed that I was going to do two things while they were gone, work out religiously, and get as much writing done as possible. Well, one out of two ain’t bad, since I failed totally at exercising, and managed to eat pizza for approximately half of my meals. There are a lot of pudgy writers out there.

While still working 40 hours at my finance manager job, I managed get a ton of really good writing done.  I’d come home from work, sit down, and start writing until I was too tired.  Thursday night was hosed because that was Nightcrawler’s last night in town before shipping out, so we ate Thai food and then Echo Tango showed us videos of him doing SCA fighting until midnight.  That’s a quick, angry, little man, especially with a sword. Friday night was shot because I taught a CCW class. (but I brought home all the leftover pizza and have been living off of that until Sunday morning).

Saturday I got up at dawn and wrote until 8:00 PM, when I joined a couple other local authors at a local Star Bucks to talk about writing, shoot the bull, and show each other what we were working on. Not being a coffee drinker, I had a strawberry smoothie. Nice.  Saturday was a 9,400 word day.   

So as of this morning I’ve got 28,600 words done this week. I’m a little fried, and will be taking a break until church. When I get back though it is back to the grind.  My family should be home tonight, so I’m shooting for an even 30,000 words in one week. I’ve not accomplished that kind of volume since I was unemployed.  I’ve not even played Call of Duty ONCE!

Though I did rent the movie Splinter, which was absolutely excellent. When anything I write gets made into a movie, Jill Wagner gets a part automatically, because she’s a gunnie in real life, CCWs, and actually keeps her finger off the trigger even though her character was supposed to not know guns. (you can even see it on the back cover of the box).  Cool monster too. Reminded me of John Carpetner’s Thing.

My current project is the Grimnoir Chronicles, an alternative history/fantasy that takes place in the summer of 1932. I’m really excited about this, as I get to combine hardboiled pulp, an epic fantasy style magic system, alternative history weirdness, super SCIENCE!, all with a secret society dedicated to fighting evil lead by Black Jack Pershing and John Moses Browning.  If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to battle teleporting ninjas while riding a flaming magic dirigible during the great depression, then this book will be for you.

This all started because I was a panelist at a writing convention, (LTUE) and the other authors had all written some sort of fantasy, but I’d written “contemporary” fantasy. (I don’t like when people lump MHI into “urban” fantasy, because it mostly takes place in rural Alabama, and most urban fantasy is about sexy vampires and the nymphomanicas that love them. Note, I said most, not all) I figured it would be fun to write an epic sword and sorcery yarn, complete with a quest and all that goodness, but I didn’t have any good ideas for one. That’s a tough genre because everything has been done to death. (hence the elves, orcs, gnomes, trolls, and all tradtional fantasy creatures in the MHI world are a little “tweaked” ) Most epic fantasy is pretty much the same, with a few really good exceptions, and I wanted to be a little different, so until I could think of something original, no epic fantasy for me.

Then one day Nightcrawler was eating dinner at my house, picked up one of my kid’s comic books, and pointed out how cool Spiderman looked in the advertisement for Noir Spiderman, with aviator’s goggles, a trench coat, a revolver, and a fedora. That turned into a conversation about how cool hardboiled pulp was and a brainstorming session that lasted for about six hours while we invented a complete world. 

If you can’t tell, I’m kind of excited.

So now I’m probably nearing the half way point. I’m going to shoot for around 120,000 words, with an absolute outer limit of 150,000. I learned my lesson trying to sell the 200,000 word MHI.

Other than that, MHI:2 The Rough Draft is still sitting on Toni’s desk, waitng for her feedback. My half of the Dead Six and its first sequel or done. I’m cowriting the Dead Six books with Nightcrawler, and he’s still working on his half. Then we need to edit them together, and it will be ready for submission.

Since I’m the faster writer, and I’m not the one in the military currently attending  “don’t touch the red wire NOOOOOOOOO- (insert huge explosion)” school” I have more free time than he does. We have made a bet. If I finish Grimnoir before he finishes Dead Six, then he has to get all dressed up, and go with Echo Tango to an SCA event and he has to actually participate.  If he finishes before I do, then Echo Tango has to wear his full suit of armor, and Nightcrawler gets to hit him with a big blunt sword for two straight minutes.  So, as you can see, either way, I win. It is good to be me.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92634/?fp=1

If you’ve read MHI, you know my feelings on mollusks and crustaceans. Especially giant ones, from beyond space and time.

Look at that picture. It’s all fun and games until one of the Elder Things dissolves your soul for eternity. Keep on laughing, Brits.  This will not end well.

http://scifi.about.com/b/2009/06/03/david-eddings-is-dead.htm

I just heard about this. He was 77 years old.

One of the very first fantasy series I ever read was his Belgariad, and one of my favorites of all time was the Elhenium. (sp?).  Sparhawk was one of my favorite characters. I believe I read those for the first time when I was about 14 or 15 years old. David Eddings is one of the authors that caught my young imagination and made me want create my own worlds some day.

He was a talented man.

I’m working from home today. I woke up with a terrible cold. Plus I mowed the lawn last night, so that fired up my allergies, so between the two, I’m just miserable.

So while in that foul mood, I was watching the news, and listening to the talking heads struggle to pronounce Sonya Sotomeyor as Son-yaaa Soooo-tay-meh-yoooor. 

No. It is Sotomeyor, Soto-Mey-Er.  Just say the friggin’ word in English, like it is spelled. It sounds a lot like it is spelled. No, you’re not a racist if you just pronounce the word normally. You are not culturally insensitive.

Officially, according to the government, I am a Latino too, because the island my grandparents came from was 500 miles off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, which speaks a language that vaguely comes from Latin, except we’re browner than France, so the SBA says to check the Hispanic box. My last name is Correia.

Here in America, it is pronounced Korea, like the country. That is the phonetic English spelling of the word. In Portugal it sounds like Co-hu-wey-aaa said real fast, with a little bit of the groovy double R rolling action that 90% of Americans can’t do. And guess what, since I am an American, they shouldn’t have to.  

When my ancestors hit Ellis Island, they were Americans, so it started being pronounced as Korea. See, my relatives didn’t come here to be some part of a giant, politically-correct salad bowl. They came here to get jobs, make money, and live in the land of opportunity. To do so, they knew that they needed to become Americans.

So on that same note, I’m going to just pronounce it Soto-Mey-Er. And if anybody is offended at my lack of cultural sensitivity, then congratulations, I’m going to insist that they pronounce my name the same way, and then I’m going to laugh as they choke to death trying to roll the Rs.

Why is it only liberal minority politicians that we have to be culturally sensitive about how we pronounce their name? If the last name is Wisenpffefer, Czernckowski, or Falloffasoffa, you don’t ever see that person putting the correct ethnic spin on the word.  The only time you ever see a total white guy pronouncing his name weird is when he’s gone to a festival where he can wear a kilt, get drunk, and throw big logs. It is also the only time they can say they’re in a Clan too…

On that note, Sotomeyor is not the daughter of immigrants, because they’re from Puerto Rico, which makes them American citizens, dang it. So quit saying that. It is obnoxious.

EDIT: It was just pointed out to me in the comments that I spelled her name wrong, and that it is actually SotomAyor instead of SotomEyer. See, I’m actually correct though. My “rich Latin heritage” enables me to judge these things better than you white people…   🙂