First thing to cover is a bit of house cleaning: my Sunday blog post is going to be moved to Monday's as this fits much better with my current work schedule.

"Jupiter Symphony" is still suffering through edits and is roughly 80% complete. It's also facing the prospect of having the last fifth chopped off and made into a separate book, but I won't know for certain until this edit is complete.

This actually dovetails in nicely with today's blog posting, which has to do with two of the hats an author must wear (and there are many more, if you are wondering).

At minimum, no matter if he is an independent author, an ebook proponent, or a hanger on of the archaic, a writer has two primary jobs: writing and editing. The order of operations is simple enough. You write, and then you edit. Except when you don't. Because of the development "Jupiter Symphony" has gone through, the order has been writing, editing, writing, editing, writing, editing. All in all, the book has gained roughly 20,000 words since this major edit began, mostly in the form of two entirely new chapters, although this also encompasses rewrites of certain sections that were too skinny previously. If you are writing, put meat on the bones of your text. Give the reader something to sink their teeth into, or they will find someone else who does.

Now, due to this shifting of job functions, I've discovered how challenging it can be to rapidly make this shift. The creative and exploratory mindset I put myself in while writing is a stark contrast to the analytical viewpoint I take when reviewing and changing the manuscript. As it turns out, I struggle to do this quickly. Now, this may be one of those things that I get better at with time, but I already have to work hard to get into editing mode, so bouncing back to writing again could prove challenging. What this means is that I've seen progress slow on the book to levels I am not happy with, and some changes need to occur.

I'm interested to know how other writers face this challenge. Perhaps it's something that only I need help with, but I would hope that isn't the case. I have yet to go through life without finding someone else that shared a struggle I have. Because things have slowed already, I don't feel to bad putting my work on hold in order to take a step back and assess the root of the issue, with the goal of coming back swinging so that I can finally knock this thing out.

I'm sure I've brought it up before, but the large overhauls and additional material means that rather than another cursory read through, the book probably needs another in depth edit, but after that stage I should be looking at a solid end time, so I've you're among the literally several people awaiting my novel, you get to wait just a little bit longer! Hey, you can't rush art. You also can't rush whatever the thing is I'm editing. Writing. Editing. Whatever.

So, if you're someone who foolishly thought that you would write a book and now are struggling to edit it, let me know what you do to get by. The best way to reach me is my Twitter, @ReadACHarrison. If you don't like that, tweet me and I'll give you my email. Honestly, though, in the top right of this page you will see buttons via which you can communicate with me. Until next Monday. 

A.C. Harrison
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...as Walter so eloquently stated in The Big Lebowski. National Socialists aside, I was recently viewing some interview material from William Gibson, and I was intrigued by the fact that as a writer, the godfather of cyberpunk does seem to carry in him an ethos, a sense of purpose and direction. More than just a survivor of the business of writing, Gibson was the spear point of the cyberpunk movement, which I daily see reflected in the world around me, despite the claims of others that dirty tech has worn out its welcome. As such, I respect Gibson's opinions and thoughts, and the fact that he seems to know his place in literature piqued my interest.

Do writers, myself included, need an ethos? Do we need a pillar around which we wrap our thoughts and motives, a foundation on which our stories base their morals and movements?

Up until this point, I hadn't really considered the question. When I sat down to write "Jupiter Symphony," my only goal was to finish the manuscript. I told myself that I would not write the great American novel, nor would I revolutionize a genre. I wasn't after classical prose or witty banter. Why? Because I wanted to be true to myself, and as a writer I knew that I was not ready to approach those things, and that I didn't have a passion to explore them yet. I promised myself, "write what you know," and so I did. Slowly, over time, the story began to form, taking shape out of clay (or more likely in my case, spilling out of the primordial ooze). The whole process was very organic, a form of natural selection that guided the prose to completion.

Science fiction is a tricky animal. If an author writes "high" sci-fi, he will utilize technologies and materials that are far flung and imaginative, so far outside the scope of our world that we find it to be more of a fantasy world than one grounded in our universe. It's something we can aspire to, for sure, but not something that we will ever see in our lifetimes. Star Trek is a great example of this, where we see amazing starships and warp drive, phasers and terraforming, and we accept it all as possible, but not probable. The concepts are very high minded, the technology just a tool for fantastic storytelling, whipping the crew of the Enterprise (whichever your flavor) from fantastic planet to remote space station, all in the blink of an eye. It's a future that gleams brightly, all polished, perfect, and prim, of high morals and the conundrums that follow. This type of science fiction, however, seems to have fallen out of favor, the Star Trek films being repackaged into action flicks, with flawed characters and shiny graphics, the better to ship the franchise overseas and make more money. The future was so far out there that many people stopped chasing it, the horizon forever distant, never approachable.

Let me begin by saying I'm going to try to keep to my Sunday blog posting schedule, but I started a new position at work, and the hours are quite different from I'm used to. I've never been a morning person, and now I'm up at 6 AM each day. In winter. In the cold. Angry.

Thankfully it's only the dark and frigid dawn that upsets me. My new position is much welcomed, being far more satisfying and challenging than the posting I had until recently found myself in. So, once more, give me some time to adjust and I'll get right back on schedule.

"Jupiter Symphony" sitrep: the edit of the manuscript is roughly three fourths done, but still proceeding at a rather leisurely pace, mostly down to my need to rewrite entire sections and add on in many places. All for the better, though. I want to put out the best novel possible, and if that means delaying release, then that will have to be how things play out. The book has blossomed to 140,000+ words, so if I keep this up I can get into "Snow Crash" territory, though I would never think to match Stephenson in both volume and depth. Still, something to shoot for.

Best of all, even though I have a new job that I find interesting and that yields me a great many benefits, I still can only focus on my writing, wanting to see things through to fruition. Really, that's what this week boils down to: staying hungry. I was concerned that with a new job, one that wasn't a dull, plodding endeavor, I would no longer feel as great an urgency to finish my manuscript. If anything, it has solidified my stance that writing is what I want to pursue, damn the torpedoes.

It's a long, painful process, the slow build to even amateur acceptability, but the draw is undeniable. Before, I turned to writing as a way out of the job that I struggled with, but now I stay with writing as the job that I cherish. It's thankless and offers absolutely zero security, but it's mine, and that's more than can be said about many of the things we do in this day and age. Writing is timeless. No matter how the media changes, it will be there, even if we're beaming books directly into our brains, "Moby Dick" in five minutes or your money back. I think many times we think of writing as an escape, especially in the genre of science fiction, but the exact opposite is true. Writing is what sheds light on our human condition. Writing is what makes us understand one another, makes us consider the world we live in, and the direction we are going.

I'm thirsty and I'm hungry. I greatly want to see my novel finished. Not because I want it to end, though. I want to see it over so I can begin. So I can keep chasing down the next human experience. Science fiction in particular holds wonders to quench the thirst, where our species starts asking the questions and seeking the answers to problems that most people do not yet realize already exist. Cybernetics, stem cell research, artificial intelligence. All these things are here, now. They aren't some far flung thing. We are staring them down, eye to eye, and most people are blinking first.

Me? I stare back and reach for a drink.

A.C. Harrison
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As I start a new work schedule this week, and I have spent the entire weekend wading through my edit of "Jupiter Symphony," I will not have time to do my weekly blog posting. I'll make it up to you. Here:

I've touched previously on writing what you know, but I wanted to talk about growth and personal development, on figuring out what you love and then expanding on it.

There's a big trend right now to push doing what you love, as well as a very interesting counter argument to the trend, which states that the culture of doing what you love devalues honest workers and their labor. What I want to talk about is those honest workers, because when you get right down to it, writing is a very thankless job, with long hours and stress equal to any company job I've held. This message, then, is for those who have already decided to write, who know and appreciate the labor behind it.

In the writing of my first book, "Jupiter Symphony," I forced myself to come clean, copying down exactly what interested me in fiction, and then working to compose something that touched on those elements. In doing so, I accepted that I had no desire to write the great American novel, and that there was a niche genre that spoke to me, so that's what I would write. I'm not going to be Shakespeare, nor would I care to be. That doesn't mean I can't take my writing seriously, working professionally to compose a great story that is also relevant and entertaining.

My second book expanded on this strategy, picking out a single element that I felt strongly for and drawing it into a story, bringing greater focus to the point I was trying to make and weaving a tighter, more focused narrative. Though that story is still in the works (and needed a painful rewrite of the ending), I can already tell that I've taken the lessons learned from my first book and built upon them. This is really the thing to consider: finishing one book does not return you to an imaginary baseline, starting over from scratch with the next manuscript. Instead, reflect back on how your writing has changed over the course of tens of thousands of words, building a new platform from which to start anew.

I feel that in my case, this will also lead to expanding my focus to other genres. I originally had no interest in things outside of hard sci-fi and classical Japanese samurai tales, but lately I've had this weird itch, a growing rash to write something very human, something very personal. The things I love to write about have become my jumping off point, my way of expanding into new fields, broadening my knowledge and skill set, pushing me to seek greater challenges. It occurs to me now that this posting is very similar to some of my previous compositions, but that's really the point of this blog, isn't it? To expand and to grow, but to do so with a road map, touching on the fundamentals, using them to lay down steps to new stages of progress.

A.C. Harrison
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Editing is about 50% done at this stage, and I'm very proud of the progress I have made in the quality  of the work.

I feel an extended preview is appropriate. Enjoy!

***Please note, sometimes my blog is slow to upload my entire post. If you do not yet see the excerpt below, it should be up in a few hours.

            Ash had finished cutting Terry’s daughter free. She collapsed into his arms like an infant, seemingly more cartilage than bone. It seemed she had been tied for some time and her limbs had fallen asleep. She also looked severely dehydrated, her tongue swollen in her mouth. It must have been hard enough for these thugs to get water for themselves, much less to keep some to give to a hostage. Ash gently patted her on the cheek, trying to wake her from her stupor. Her eyelids fluttered and then slowly opened, her brown eyes glazed, shifting in and out of focus. Ash could feel the shallow breaths she was taking. Her mouth moved, but nothing more than a quiet rasping came out. Ash took the opportunity to reassure her.

            “I’m here with your father. We’re getting you out of this place,” he whispered.

            She nodded in assent.

            “Can you stand?” Ash asked.

            In response, she pushed off from his body and, quite slowly, with Ash holding her and wobbling the whole way, she reached the top. Though she was battered and beaten, she still stood with strong purpose, inner fire still burning deep. As Ash started escorting her to the back door, more shouting came from the hall.

            “That’s it, Terry! You ain’t never gonna see your daughter. I’m putting you down!”

            Ash had to pull her back as the sound of a pistol slide being racked echoed through the concrete block structure. He pulled his autorevolver from its holster and prepared to storm in to save Terry. In preparation, he leaned Terry’s daughter up against the wall next to the back door.

            “What’s your name?” Ash asked.

            “Angeline,” she whispered.

            “Angeline, I’m Ash. This is the exit. Go quietly and stay low. There’s a ditch across the field, use it to slip away. I’m going to help your father,” he said.

            “No, let me go with you,” she struggled to speak.

            Ash shook his head. In response, she reached out to grab hold of him, knowing she couldn’t move forward quickly, trying to detain him. He easily slipped back, her slender fingertips just brushing his coat.

            “Go. Now,” he ordered.

            Without waiting to see her response, he turned away and moved to the hall door while hugging the wall, hoping he still had time. There would be no subtlety. Taking a deep breath, he stepped out and filled the door frame with his body, casting his shadow down the dim hallway. He saw it fall on four gangsters who had Terry on his knees. One stood behind him with a pistol in his hand, preparing to press it to Terry’s head.

            “Yo, what the f--”

            Ash shot the pistol carrying one first. The round caught him in the chest, just below his throat and slightly to the left, slamming through the subclavical vein and ripping it from the jugular as the round deformed and the head mushroomed out, blowing out the back of his torso and splattering the floor behind him with a fan of blood, tissue, and bone fragments. The blowback of the round exiting the muzzle forced the cylinder to rotate, locking the next chamber into position and cocking the hammer for the next shot. Before the first man hit the ground, Ash was aiming at the man called Smokey to the left of Terry, who, along with his other living friend, was starting to draw a weapon of his own. On the first shot he had taken, Ash wasn’t conscious of the boom coming from his barrel and reverberating off the bare walls. This time he felt like his ears had collapsed inside his head as the pistol barked again, the barrel ejecting a second piece of supersonic lead which crossed the distance at 1,220 feet each second. The slug connected with Smokey’s left arm at the top of the bicep and smashed through the humerus, turned, and exited out the side of the same arm. Smokey’s face was a mask of pure pain as his mutilated arm went limp. His right hand dropped the autoloader he was pulling from his track pants, reaching across to clutch at his terrible wound. Ash didn’t have time to keep watching, as the last target now had his pistol out from under his shirt and was bringing it to bear. He rotated his torso, keeping his hands in the firing position, each degree of movement crawling by at an agonizingly slow pace.

Ash always though he was pretty quick in combat, but at this point he felt as if he was swimming through rapidly setting concrete. His front sight had cleared the right arm of the target. He kept turning, the reticle in his goggles now touching the very edge of the target’s torso. Ash dimly recognized that the other man’s pistol was now trained on him. Still, the burning red dot moved, until Ash finally couldn’t take it, his blood crashing, echoing in his skull, his lungs feeling like there was no air in the room. His finger slowly applied pressure to the trigger, the pad of his fingertip resting squarely in the middle. The finger of the man aiming at him was roughly jammed through the trigger guard, and he smashed the trigger to the back as quickly as he could. A blossom of fire emerged from the tip of the thug’s gun barrel and a searing hot lance slid past Ash’s torso on his right side, just below his armpit. Ash’s gun fired. The round pierced the gangster’s heart and exploded it, killing him instantly, his grimy, dirt body crumpling into the ground, a fountain of crimson trailing him to the cold concrete that reached up to embrace his corpse.

Time snapped back to normal and seconds stopped acting like hours. Smokey lay on the ground groaning, his arm a mess. The ground was slick with blood and tissue, and every new sound seemed distant and hazy. Terry, whom Ash admitted he had completely forgotten, came up from the ground and grabbed Smokey’s gun. Shouting could be heard coming from what Ash assumed was the main gymnasium. It seemed the people in the hall were only a fraction of the gang’s muscle. The rest now hurried to see what the commotion was. Terry came to his full height and moved towards Ash, the two heading towards the back room where Angeline waited. Ash’s eyes went wide as about twenty armed men started pouring into the hallway, a typhoon of thuggery and violence. The men at the front raised a wall of weapons, the muzzles a constellation of black holes, each one ready to snuff out life. Ash and Terry had nowhere to go, perfectly bracketed and exposed. Then, the room exploded.

Everything was suddenly happening very quickly. Goldilocks was trying to get access to the radio frequency being used by the officers that were coming after the nomad, while simultaneously watching what was occurring through the drone’s camera. She saw the ground vehicles draw up to the building Ash had gone into and officers emerge with weapons drawn. Two of them approached the main entrance, while one circled around the back. The other six moved into position along the side of the building, stacking up on some invisible marker. One of them toggled his radio, his mouth silently moving, probably in conversation with the helicopter from where orders seemed to originate. Oddly, the six officers then moved back towards the front of the building, then got low and shielded their faces. The helicopter moved into position perpendicular to the building, hovering over the field. Goldilocks could only watch as a missile suddenly went streaming off the right helicopter wing stub, the warhead accelerating much more quickly than she would have imagined. It struck the building dead center, though it seemed the fuse was set to detonate just before impact, blasting a man-sized hole in the side wall. Instantly the six officers were moving, sprinting over to the newly created entry hole, taking advantage of what must have been utter chaos inside.

Ash’s hearing slowly filtered back in, turning from muffled confusion to slightly more delineated sounds. He was laying on his back, covered in concrete fragments and dust. The hallway was dark, the air being full of floating debris and fine grime. His head was pounding incessantly and his vision kept blurring out of focus, taking conscious effort to correct. He knew he was bleeding from several wounds, but upon feeling them he found them to be superficial cuts, none requiring much more than stitches and glue. Realizing the need to get up and get moving, he rolled onto his stomach and tried to gather his knees up under his torso. Though they argued with him awhile, he finally was able to position himself so he could push up off the ground and reach a hunched over altitude. He saw Terry further down the hall, towards the locker room, laying on his side. Blood was streaming down the side of his head and a jagged piece of concrete could be seen on the ground next to him, the point of it covered in blood. After collecting and holstering his pistol, Ash made his way over to him, dropping to his knees once he got there, not entirely by choice. He rolled Terry onto his back, but before he could check on his vitals he heard shouting from behind him. Several high powered flashlights were pushing in from the outside, utilizing the hole that until recently had not existed. That would explain the explosion, then. Judging by the voices, movement, and equipment, the LAPD had arrived. The gang members at the other end of the hall had apparently recuperated, for as the first officer cleared the blast hole, several men fired on him. The officer dropped to a knee and rolled back out of the hallway.

Ash didn’t wait to see how this was going to play out, realizing his good fortune of the gang firing on the police would only last for a few moments. He gathered Terry up in a fireman’s carry and proceeded down the hall. Staggering drunkenly into the locker room, he lay Terry down on the ground in the better light as Angeline came to his side.

“Is he...” her words choked her.

“Not yet,” Ash said, his speech slow.

Ash checked Terry’s pulse, which was dull and off tempo. Terry groaned and his eyes opened, revealing dilated pupils. Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, Terry spoke in a low, halting tone.

“My leg.”

Ash started to move to Terry’s organic leg, but Terry grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“No. Other one. Hidden compartment. Back of the calf. Medicine. Stims,” Terry managed to squeeze out the words.

Ash looked to Angeline. Moving quickly, she detached the leg from its socket, flipped it over, and activated a hidden latch which opened a recessed compartment. Inside was a single emergency treatment kit. Extracting a syringe, Angeline quickly administered it to her father, then reattached the cybernetic limb. Terry seemed to calm. Ash doubted the medicine was already in effect, but just the knowledge of it being in his system probably helped. Ash and Angeline helped Terry to stand, taking up positions on either side of him. Based on the volume, the gunfight in the hall was intensifying, several stray rounds finding their way into the locker room and smashing into the rear block wall. Time to go.

The three of them burst out the back door and right into the waiting arms of an officer left to guard the escape. Ash had been in front, and he and the policeman became tangled together, falling to the ground in a rather ungraceful heap, limbs heading in all different directions. Angeline was able to keep Terry up, but couldn’t help Ash, the weight of the wounded older man taking all her strength. The toppled officer reacted more quickly than the shell chocked nomad, coming up into a crouch. The officer revealed that he also wasn’t a rookie, not moving to draw his pistol, knowing full well he could get to his sidearm in time given the space between the two combatants. Instead he launched himself at Ash, who was still only in a seated position, his legs uselessly extended straight in front of him on the ground.

Pushing off the ground hard, the cop’s shoulder slammed into Ash’s torso. Though the target had been the nomad’s solar plexus, the shoulder struck a little high and to the side. Even so, the force knocked Ash flat on his back, stunning him. It was all he could do to keep from striking the back of his head on the ground, which would have ended the fight immediately. Keeping his weight on Ash’s torso to prevent him from moving, the officer drove his right knee into Ash’s sternum, pinning him to the floor. With the officer’s body over him, Ash couldn’t bring his right arm across to draw his pistol, nor could his left arm raise up high enough to reach, the angle being impossible. He saw the officer’s right hand go to his holster and start to draw. As the black handgun started to emerge from its polymer case, a blur of dull metal flashed through the air and crashed into the officer’s right forearm, causing him to cry out and roll off to Ash’s right. The nomad wondered if any of the cop’s bones were broken as he rolled to the left and came up on his feet, still woozy. Standing next to him was Terry, balanced on one leg, his cybernetic limb held in his hands at the ankle as an impromptu baseball bat, Angeline behind him holding onto his shirt to stabilize him

“Nice party trick,” Ash gasped.

“Thanks. It makes a pretty good bong, too.”

Angeline quickly helped her father reattach the limb as Ash unholstered his autorevolver and walked over to the officer, not knowing what he could do to incapacitate him that also wasn’t possibly fatal. Before he could reach him, though, the cop toggled the throat microphone attached to his radio.

“At the back! He’s at the-”

His cries were cut off as Ash pistol whipped him upside the head, the butt of the gun making a sharp crack as it struck the officer’s left temple, leaving him still on the ground. The three escapees heard that the gunfire inside was dying down, becoming more sporadic. Alerted to the activity at the rear of the building, the police would mop up the gangbangers and already be on their way. It was time to escape. Ash and Angeline once again helped the wounded Terry get to walking, but they hadn’t gone more than a few meters before the sky was filled with a screeching, thumping cacophony of such violence that it seemed to mark the arrival of the four horsemen. Looking up through his goggles, Ash’s mouth went dry as a fully armed police attack helicopter rapidly bled off altitude, its chin mounted gun tracking their movements. Ash’s party came to a halt, the sense of futility pushing their feet into the ground, preventing them from moving. Then, for the second time that night, and two times more than he felt necessary, Ash was caught in an explosion.

Goldilocks hated being so blunt, but time was once again standing opposed to her and so she had to make do. From inside the police drone system she started thinking of a way to access the controls of the drone she was currently using to watch the action unfolding below. Though she could remotely view information from the drone, and even intercept commands being sent to it, she did not have the software that drone controllers used to directly interface with the units and operate them manually. It would take far too long to try to gain root access on a console that had the software; she needed a faster solution. Deciding the only option left to her was a desperate gamble, she opened her console and readied a command. As the drone continued its automated orbit, she waited until it was roughly lined up with the helicopter and fired off her command, which switched off the drone. The neurons inside her brain sparking in harmony with the electrical pulses of the 1s and 0s of her interface, she switched drone feeds just in time to see if her gamble paid off. This new drone was lower and further west of the action, but it was facing towards the attack helicopter. From up above, her original drone came out of the sky in a parabolic arc, the engines dead and the on board computers no longer sending inputs to the control surfaces. It was only on the screen for a heartbeat, but in that time it passed low over the blades of the armed helo and right into the low pressure vortex created by the spinning maw. The drone nosed over and smashed into the middle of the rotor assembly, right into the Jesus nut, careening off and crashing into the ground next to Ash and party, bursting into a gigantic fireball.

The helicopter, meanwhile, staggered from the blow and listed dangerously to port. The pilot reacted quickly, killing the primary rotor system and feeding full power into the four directional thrusters, but it was too late. He tried to compensate for the tilting vehicle, but that only served to push it faster in the direction of its lean, still descending and now accelerating laterally. Realizing there was no escape, he killed the starboard thrust, hoping to at least orient the craft vertically before it struck ground. He nearly accomplished his goal, the craft almost completely righted by the time the ground welcomed the collection of titanium, steel and carbon bits and pieces that were no longer on speaking terms. Lacking any sound from her drone, she imaged a huge noise must have radiated out from the impact. The landing gear smashed upwards into the frame, as designed, and the wing pylons separated from the chassis, taking excess energy with them as they pin wheeled off into the darkness.

Countless fragments spiraled off in all directions, a galaxy of glittering debris forming as the helo bounced once, hit the ground again, and then rolled over onto its left side, coming to a crumpled rest several dozen meters from where it had been holding station in the sky. Smoke, fire, and raining debris obscured the cameras, but the infrared clearly showed three small forms huddled on the ground, now cautiously rising up, now crossing the field as quickly as they could, given their injuries. Officers came storming out of the back of the building, weapons drawn. Goldilocks knew that after this stunt, her access to the drone system would be cut off and the authorities would begin tracing a path back to where her hacking had originated from. Wanting to help as much as she could and knowing she had nothing to lose, she shrugged to herself and switched off all the drones, wishing she had another camera to watch the chaos that was certainly unfolding.



            First Ash and company had been blinded by the spotlight which erupted from the bottom of the helicopter which had caught them outside. Then, before he could do more than switch inputs on his goggles to a more useful setting, something had smashed into the helicopter and then hit the ground near them, sending up a fireball and rocking them with a shock wave. The helicopter itself then fell to earth and divested itself of many pieces, though the crew cabin itself had survived. The air was filled with flying bits of metal, and Ash thanked the stars that they were just out of range of both crashes so as to receive only small pieces of burning debris raining down on them. Some of the pieces cut or bumped, but they were not pieces of high speed shrapnel and so they didn’t have to worry about being perforated excessively. Realizing fortune was smiling on them, they took off across the back field, officers now pouring out of the building in hot pursuit.             It was at that point that things for the trio started to go from intense to hold onto your ass crazy. It seemed that the police drones that were so ubiquitous patrolling the city and assisting officers had decided to become kamikaze pilots and were falling out of the sky all around them. Officers dove for cover and Ash, Terry, and Angeline ran a serpentine pattern, making their way to safety as quickly as they could. Behind them more huge crashes echoed one after another as the terrain in front of them was illuminated by the fires now burning behind them, their shadows becoming long and disfigured by the low angled light, alien forms flitting across the broken landscape like visitors from another world.

They hit the ditch Ash and Terry used previously and crouched low, taking a moment to catch their breath, heavy panting coming from Angeline and Terry while Ash tried to control his heart rate, forcing himself to inhale all the way to the bottom of his stomach, sucking air through his nose and expelling it from his mouth. Wordlessly, they proceeded along the ditch back towards the car, the chaos of the school now dying down. They remained silent until they felt they were far out of earshot, hoping they had given their pursuers the slip, half expecting another helicopter to come screeching out of the sky above them. As Terry came off of his adrenaline high, the injuries he had sustained in the escape started to catch up with him and the party was forced to slow in order to accommodate him. Finally, he came to a stop nearly two thirds of the way to their destination, sitting on the cracked asphalt of what was once a convenience store parking lot, the giant white, orange and green sign hanging at a precarious angle from the front of the building. Ash crouched down in front of him, but Terry waved him off.

“I’m okay,” he gasped. “Let me--catch my--breath.”

            Ash’s brow furrowed in consternation. Terry’s right hand was clutched to his left flank against his torn shirt. Blood ran slowly down his fingers, turning into black spots as the drops landed in a patch of dirt next to him. Ash reached forward and pulled Terry’s hand away from the wound, causing the older man to wince in pain. As the palm came away, Ash saw the damage Terry had sustained. A long sliver of metal, which seemed to have sheared off of either one of the drones or the helicopter, was protruding from his side. The segment of edge that was still exposed appeared razor sharp. A fine stream of red seemed to glide elegantly over it before forming into a bead at the end, hanging momentarily before dripping off, the distant city lights captured in the orb for the split second it was in the air. Ash looked at the rate at which blood was seeping from the puncture and realized Terry must have already lost quite a bit of the stuff. He was going to need help quickly, though to Ash it appeared that no major arteries or veins were hit.

            “Does it go all the way through?” Ash asked.

            Terry shook his head as a negative, unable to speak.

            “Good. Keep pressure on it. We have no choice but to move you,” Ash explained. “Staying here is just going to put you in a worse position.”

            Terry nodded, and Ash appreciated that he wasn’t wasting his breath talking. Angeline had become very pale, tears welling in her eyes, though she kept them from running down her cheeks. She looked stunned, unable to speak. Ash got under Terry’s left arm and hoisted him back to his feet. The three shuffled along back towards the car, with Ash feeling as if each step only covered a few inches at best, though he knew logically it wasn’t true. They finally turned a corner and laid eyes on the Charger, a fine coat of dust already having settled on the body in the short time they were away to rescue Angeline. Ash turned to her.

            “Take the keys out of my right back pocket and open the back door,” he instructed.

            She did as he asked, swinging the door wide. Ash laid Terry down inside so he was supine across the rear bench, though the rearward bars of the roll cage did severely cut into the available space. Angeline climbed into the front passenger seat as Ash walked around the vehicle to the driver’s side. Opening the door, he took one last look back at the piece of suburbia which had become part drug town, part mass grave. An eerie feeling crawled up his spine as he realized the police response in the area didn’t make sense if they were only trying to bust low rent gang bangers. He also didn’t think Terry was their intended target, and he certainly knew they wouldn’t waste their time to rescue a kidnapped girl who didn’t belong to a family of wealth and influence. There wasn’t any money in those actions, nor would there be reason for them to go out of their way to such an area strictly to flex their muscle. Sliding into the driver’s seat and shutting the door, Ash was forced to admit that the only reason for what had just occurred was his presence in Los Angeles. He turned the key and the big V8 grumbled awake, echoing in the alleyway, as Ash took off, the three survivors fleeing the scene.


A.C. Harrison
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It turns out that I'm not a big fan of editing. Not my work, not other people's. It isn't due to any perceived failing. I like to see where I can improve and then work towards that goal. I think I just find the process overwhelming and, to be honest, a bit tedious. The editing phase of "Jupiter Symphony" as been a protracted one, in large part because I have trouble sitting down and forcing myself to work on the text. This means I'm approaching editing as I did writing, with a clean slate, making it necessary for me to really plan out my editing time and to set clear expectations for myself, forming new habits so I can get the darn thing done, which is looming ever closer (thankfully).

...or as I like to say, "don't Lucas it." What do I mean by that? I mean don't keep messing with things to the point that you destroy something that was originally great.

Let me back up and explain.

As a writer I have made the conscious decision that I'm going to be publishing my work electronically, and that no print copies will be made (though I'm sure family and friend will want--and get--actual books). We're right on the cusp of 2014, and current publishing options are very exciting. Without leaving my house I can write my entire manuscript, have it reviewed and edited, get a cover designed, and publish my work to the largest market in the world: the entire internet. This gives a lot of access and flexibility, and I feel that overall it's a greater positive than it is a negative. Yes, readers have to dig a little more to find really good authors, and yes, authors need to work harder to stand out, but these authors and readers never would have had the chance to connect before this form of publishing began to mature. Now, the ebook world is large, thriving, and growing to the point where print media is looking very much the dinosaur.

Even more interesting to me is the fact that revisions can be made on the fly, to the point where a book can be entirely rejuvenated and republished, all with the click of a button. Realize you left a plot hole in your book? Click-click, new version published. Need to add a prologue to clear up some confusion? Click-click, all fixed. It becomes terribly easy to even go back and retcon your work if you do sequels and/or prequels, making everything nice and neat. Mentioning prequels, however, has to make most people think of the Star Wars prequels that were spit out so many years back (longer than you might think, actually). Prequels and special editions, the two elements that I feel ruined the universe of Star Wars.

As we see in film, we can imagine happening in literature. Fans were made to be upset and stories were altered because it became very easy to use digital manipulation to make up whole new segments of story that didn't originally fit in with the rest of the universe. Huge chunks of plot and character development were roughly grafted onto the side of an otherwise excellent set of films (and if anyone doesn't agree Empire is the best I will cut them). Art happens through adversity, something I fervently believe. Having too much control and too much access can allow a writer to wander down the dark path and begin messing with his work, altering it and distorting it to the point where it becomes a shadow of its former self, and readers become turned off by what they once cherished.

Electronic publishing is a powerful thing. Certainly writers in the past put out new editions of their work as well, but it was different then, going through editors and a publisher. It might not always have been best, but having that filter slowed down the process and allowed for only really necessary changes to be included. Should you leverage the ability to make changes to your book after it's published? Absolutely. Clarify things. Fix grammatical errors. Clean up spelling. Update your cover. Do all these things. But don't fundamentally change you work. Let it stand on its own merits. Give it time to be digested by the public, so that they can come to know it and appreciate it. If you keep messing with it, it will never have the opportunity to gestate, and that's a very important thing for a novel.

They already lie on the news and change it. The world of accurate facts is fading fast. Shouldn't your own work strive to bring back some of that sincerity? I would even say some of the bravery it takes to stand by something and defend it, rather than changing it or sweeping it under a rug. There are schools of thought out there that believe once a work is published, it no longer belongs to the author. I don't know if I fully agree, but I do know there are aspects of that outlook I find truthful, especially when I consider digital publishing. I hope you consider it as well.

A.C. Harrison
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Normal broadcasts will resume next week. For today I want to share a few updates regarding production.

• No real writing all of last week, due to family being in town for an early Christmas. Everyone is out of the house as of today, so back to the grind I go. A break was nice to have, but even over the course of a week you lose a lot of speed and momentum. If writing was my profession I suspect this wouldn't be as jarring a transition.
• "Jupiter Symphony" is still approaching release, but I have not yet started on cover design work, and so it may be delayed into January. I've been going back and forth on the design more than I probably should be, but I take a very professional viewpoint with my work and would like to have a presentable and attractive cover image.
• More troubling, since the latest full edit, I'm considering changing the title of the book. Despite having composed a blog entry on book titles, I'm finding that editing really takes the wind out of your sails when it comes to ideas that seemed really solid earlier. I still like the title, but more work needs to go into certain parts of the book to emphasize it.
• "Unto Persephone" was also on pause, but is now probably only two weeks out from the first manuscript being done. Figure a month more realistically as my focus shifts more towards finishing "Jupiter Symphony."
• "The Long Night" is starting to take shape, and I'm excited to see how it comes together. I'm trying new techniques, adding to my writing toolbox and seeing if it makes things fit together more cleanly than before. The fact that I've been writing prequels has really highlighted how important it is to have meticulous notes on characters, and a timeline is in the works to keep the facts (fictions?) straight.
• I haven't forgotten coupon codes. This blog will still feature coupons for "Jupiter Symphony" once it is published, so everyone can enjoy my first work. I'm much more interested in seeing what everyone thinks of my first foray, so stay tuned for details.

A.C. Harrison
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