Part 2 - I Odysseus

Rereleased for Christmas, part 2 as read by Bernard Setaro Clark

Check out this episode!

[Script] Unfood - Page 44

Kendra barely manages to restrain herself from getting angry. KENDRA What is what? GOVERNOR Well, this looks like your lucky day. It looks like someone has posted your fee. KENDRA Wait. What? GOVERNOR Someone has paid for your entire bill. Including an additional amount for the medical treatment. In fact, if I’m reading your new credit rating right, you’re both quite wealthy. Nothing earth shattering of course but still. KENDRA So...we can go? GOVERNOR Yes. The transport will be taking both of you. You might want to pack your belongings. Kendra searches around the rather barren shack. KENDRA Um. Yeah. No thanks. Kendra hugs Aaron as the camera pans to a wide shot of the shack with the transport landing near both of them. -Fin

[Script] Unfood - Page 43

43. SCENE – EXT – SHIP – SPACE The tech’s ship departs. SCENE – DAY – SHIT WORLD – SHACK – EX Aaron collapses from exhaustion. KENDRA Aaron! She picks him up and takes him into the shack. SCENE – DAY – SHACK – INT Kendra lays Aaron on the table. She goes over to the comm unit and enters a code. GOVERNOR Yes? KENDRA Aaron is sick. He needs help. Quick. GOVERNOR It’ll cost you. A lot. KENDRA (beat) How much? GOVERNOR Well for top of the line evac, plus medical treatment, we’re talking about more than you make in a year. A lot more. KENDRA How much. GOVERNOR Ten years. At least. KENDRA Let him....let him...(beat) Fine. I’ll pay. GOVERNOR Excellent. I’ll send them right away. Oh. Wait. What’s this?

And so here we are....

A month later.  The earworm of "Greensleeves" pounding through my head after TC amused himself "Triple Dent Gumming" many people over the weekend.  I volunteered for this duty at the beginning of May when a portion of TC's soul literally died.  It's been an exhilerating and exhausting series of events.

I was so burned out myself after a few failures in late October that it was only at the urging of the remaining shards of TC's soul that I wrote Heliotrope with TC's flesh and willpower channeled from the after life.  If that sounds like a convoluted mental exercize to be able to write something, you're not kidding.  Though I am mixed on the results.

Word count, under the right circumstances, is easy.  Yesterday, flying back from San Francisco, I considered how much we could do if we only wrote consistently at half that rate, multiple blog posts, multiple short stories and novelas.  But there are some restrictions.  Our material is always rough, too rough for utility.  We can submit it to gatekeepers, but without paid editing, it is an abomination.  But that much capital for everything we could write is simply beyond us.  And what about paid advertising?

The other conundrum is that I really enjoy this when I'm not burned out by the repeated failures.  The realization that the book tour indiegogo was not happening and would never happen.  The understanding that this was a years long commitment and that if we wanted to do this professionally, unlike most it would take a considerable investment.  Was it even worth it?

The year has had some amazing successes and failures, but they are to be expected.  Heliotrope at this stage of raw words seems about the third best of the six...GMVZ and Forever West are better.  Heliotrope has too many in jokes and personal truisms, but is still worth salvaging.  Indeed, any novel except likely Precyber will be paid, illustrated, edited and made into physical form for our own library at least.

The question remains on the podcast and paid advertizing.  Credit card debt and children are expensive propositions, and while TC wisely chose the better choices of moving to Miami and setting up the Ricks household there, it has been expensive and will severely limit funds.  Funds in this sphere remain entirely speculative.

So what does that mean? Well, at the moment we're not sure.  But Heliotrope does open up a whole new world of fleshing out.  Not a game, but maybe a very expanded edition with notes and other short stories associated with the core novel.  The blog has the advantage of being free without the expectation of editing.  And I wrote 50,000 words in one month for a fairly good novel.  With enough editing, it can potentially become a very good one.

The podcast has been going for two years now, mostly of apparantly crappy sound editing on my part; but I am learning and Grayson isn't THAT expensive.  So I will likely continue that at least until GMVZ is finished.  Do I make it biweekly after that? Something else? I have vague ideas of it as a platform but I lack the standing to attract folks for it very easily.  It is a vanity project, but one I take very seriously and it has resulted in some awesome things for those who can deal with the sound quality.

The future of my writing is unclear, save that I shall continue doing it and that I have high hopes to put out a great deal of content on this blog.  Beyond that, it will depend on funds that can, to be blunt gentle reader, wasted.  Which for several months won't happen but employement is likely in the future and the backup material on the podcast is nearly dead so that will likely continue for at least a while.

Still, I have seen amazing things happen, including my personal enjoyment of the audiobook of I, Odysseus even if others...don't share my agreement or enjoyment thereof. ;)  Regardless gentle reader, interesting times are ahead, and I shall continue to refine my limited gift, since consistent application over time often yields interesting results.

I shall likely provide a new sechedule of content or attempted agenda tomorrow or more likely Wed.

Adieu.

GMVZ Chapter 14

Grenademan vs the Zombies Chapter 14

Check out this episode!

[Script] Unfood - Page 42

CONTINUED: 42. TECH 1 Well...I mean... TECH 2 Maybe one of the inmates played some kind of a practical joke. LEADER Maybe. (beat) Maybe. LEADER Wow, what a mess. The team breaks out shovels and a body bag. TECH 1 Shame too. Guy was clever, doing that with the sensors, especially on this ship. TECH 2 Yeah. Well, not quite clever enough. LEADER Alright, we done here? TECH 1 Just about. TECH 2 Wow. If I’m reading this right, he nearly made it. Just two more hours and we coulda saved him. LEADER Well, you know what they say, life’s a bitch. All three laugh and put the body onto a cart. They then proceed to leave. SCENE – AIRLOCK – INT – DAY The three of them go through the air lock. Bob follows.

[Script] Unfood - Page 41

41. Cut to the sensors flickering on and off. FREIGHT The sensors.....they can detect the sensors. The cutters start their work. FREIGHT Wait! Stop! Abort! I know how to send a signal. The cutters continue. Freight struggles in his bonds. The cutters move deeper, blood spurts. FREIGHT WAIT GOD DAMN IT! WAIT. STOP. I CAN STILL FEEL IT. The cutters stop and in that moment he breaks free but the injection arm hits him with a third dose of anesthetic. He crawls down off of the table, but wobbles back and forth. He is clearly bleeding. He moves back and forth and lands in a hall way. Freight leaves a trail of blood behind him. INT – SENSOR ROOM – DAY Freight taps into the computer rapidly. He just sets it up to say S.O.S. FREIGHT S.O.S. God damn it! SOS. The screen blips and seems to acknowledge the command. Freight slowly slides backward in the chair, unconscious. SCENE – DAY – AIR LOCK – INT A clean up crew comes on to the ship. TECH 1 So do you think that this was just a bug? LEADER A bug that says SOS? (CONTINUED)