All That's Left is Unpacking

(Pictured: Darth Harmonus visiting the Tomb of the Holy Sister, Post Conflict Year 8 (Colorized)

Well, the last three months have been exciting. Having to bunk down at my daughter's house while the house I'd bought had to undergo major overhauls (drywall, plumbing, electrical, flooring, bathroom, roofing) that each overhaul revealed something else that needed worked on.

Now we're in. The boxes are out of the storage areas and being gone through. (A lot of "why did we save this?") It's a much smaller house, but my wife and I figured we were old enough to move out of the kids's house. LOL

AND, I keep trying to use the patches, making an effort to quit smoking. Worst is in the morning, when I get up, all bleary, and stagger onto the back porch trying to shrug the meds, to light up a cigarette like I've done for like 30 years.

Now, onto the First Contact front.

If we're using the Three Act formula, we're at the "Disaster" phase of the Second Act. IF we use the Four Act Formula we're in the "All is Lost" section.

Now, we all know I only give a passing nod to the standard structures, mainly because I started looking at the various 'self-help' guides for writing and found myself going "If I did that my readers would tar and feather me!" in it. That "What a Twist!" bullshit where you pull something out of your ass that you never even hinted at or made any references to happening to "invert expectations" or whatever buzzword bullshit they wanna toss out there.

I grew up on Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Mike Hammer, Three Investigators, and Scooby Doo. ALL of those taught me that the audience should see the clues, even if they don't register consciously, because while you might not have consciously caught it, your brain did. Take for example the Sixth Invasion of Terra. The Lanaktallan voted on that and it even said that the Mantid could have told them it was a bad idea. In hindsight it was glaringly obvious what the chapter refers to, but at the time, it was just consciously going "oh, invasion".

Which leads to where we're going.

Uh, I kind of know. The highway is there in my head, but I can only see a little ways, see events and characters. I can see Dee talking to Daxin in the parking garage in Aspen, holding out a glittering lure that he cannot resist. I can see Dambree teaching her aunt how to build a punji trap. I can see Atilla of  the Line firing his guns on a planet that has only a scant few thousand humans left on it. I can see the Omniqueen realizing she's made the worst mistake since the Lanaktallan attacked Terra. I can see the rogue Overqueen but not what she's doing or where. I can hear snatches of conversation here and there.

It's all slowly gelling.

Into: Behold, Humanity.

We've got a lot left of the story. Old friends to revisit, new friends to meet.

Anyway, that's enough blathering for today.

Stay safe, stay warm, and be good to one another.

--Ralts