Dear readers,

I have revamped this old blog to better showcase the Black Book series. The Iechnor Base site is a little too cumbersome to update to keep up with the series. I realize this blog is syndicated on Facebook, so if the posts start getting irritating, leave a comment, and I'll break the link. On the other hand, it makes me look like I'm getting on Facebook, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.

Where Black Book stands:

Book 1: Project Black Book (Currently a very disjointed novel; probably heading toward a collection of short stories/short novel.)

Book 2: Laws Among Friends (Currently a complete rough draft)

Book 3: The Announcement (Currently a handful of conceptual scenes)

Book 4: Under the Radar (Currently a short story)

Book 5: Best Left Dead (Currently.... *ahem*)

Book 6: Out of Enemies (Currently a concept and a very bad title)

Book 7: Rebellion Reborn (Currently a dark concept)

Book 8: Chain of Command (Currently an amusing concept)

For the past eight years, whenever I finished a book, I started a new one. Sometimes, I didn't even wait until I finished. This time, I'm going to try this editing thing. LAF is a good novel with a majority of the scenes being exciting, amusing, or interesting. But it can be more. I need to revise to fix some little details (like characters whose names changed halfway through or characters whose names should be a better differentiated from each other); and to fix some larger details (like a mounting conflict and the developing attitudes between Jenn and Chryson).

Project Black Book... Has some really good plot threads, good characters, flat characters, and characters that are introduced too late, as well as a really irritating pronoun problem, according to Ann Cecil. (Being the author, I know who 99% of the pronouns are referring to, just from context, so I'm rather blind to that.) I was going to give up on this completely, but it's still a great and fairly thorough introduction to the relevant part of the universe. Unfortunately, the relevant part of the universe is a little too spread out to make for a coherent novel. It needs work.

In light of all that, here's the plan:

1. Make sketches (or find pictures) for most of the settings, in order that the setting can really come to life in revisions.
2. Sketch most of the characters' outfits, so that the physical appearance of characters is a little more vivid and so that other characters address them more logically/appropriately given their assumptions based on clothes.
3. Read through Ella's and Ann's comments, make suggested line edits, and list major changes/inconsistencies to address.
4. Read through LAF and list the major changes I want to address.
5. REVISE!

Any help, especially on the artistic end of things, would be greatly appreciated.

How many times have we been told to thank a soldier?

I never really believed in it. I don't like politics. If pressed, I won't tell you whether I agree or disagree with America's recent military actions. Whether a war is right or not usually isn't why the soldier went there. They had their reasons, and their reasons had nothing to do with me.

But then I start thinking.

About Stargate. The brave men and women who literally ran into dangerous situations and put their lives at stake for their countrymen.

About NCIS. The fictional marines who lost friends in the line of duty. The soldiers who were never the same after returning from war.

About a man I work with, a Vietnam veteran who speaks very vaguely about his time in "sunny, southeast Asia," who wouldn't advise another to repeat his experiences but who would have done it again if the situation arose.

About my neighbor, who left his wife and three children to fly several tours in Afghanistan. Who, even when he came home, made time to help his son with math over the summer, sitting beside him all day long.

I start thinking about how hard it must have been for them, so far from home, doing the jobs they were told to do. About all the discipline they must exercise to keep at it day in and day out and all the lip they might take from war protesters who see them as the hand of the government and not admirable human beings who learned fathoms of self-control, only to put it to use in some of the most grueling situations on earth.

When the man in Army BDUs passed my car at the gas station, I didn't know what I wanted to say.

I don't think I could do what he does. Whether I can, sure don't want to try.

I'm not going to argue that we need to be at war or that it's going to gain us anything. But that's not why most of those individuals are there. They're there, because they were asked to join and were told to go. They're there, because they've committed themselves to one of the hardest, most disciplined jobs in our country.

And that's admirable.

Soldiers don't walk through America in BDU's very often. I'm not going to tell you to compulsively thank every uniformed man you come across.

But think about it. Even if you don't like war, how can you object to the service and the duty that so pervades their lives? Could you do what they do?

When the man came back out and I was closing up my gas log, I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Hey." He turns to face me, returning the same smile I'd sent him on his way in. "Thank you for your service."

His smile broadens. "Thank you."

I hope we both drove away feeling a little bit lighter.