Michael Clark

Rough Draft Tunnel Rat Chapter 87

(Very rough, just finished knocking it out, about 3000 words. )

A pale, thin man wearing a silver and black kilt sat upon a throne made of broken promises, a pencil and account book in his hands. His torn black t-shirt proclaimed him to be a patron of the troubadours known as Motorhead. As he oversaw the work of his hundred best warrior-accountants, the strains of The Ace of Spades shook the room. Everyone worked faster when the music was loud.

He was interrupt by a chim...

Rough Draft: Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 160

As the sun rose over Sedgewick, a lone figure appeared in the village square. Everyone was used to McTeeth resurrecting each morning by now, but it was still fun to watch. He always made a production of stretching and yawning as if he was getting out of bed and then dove into the village fountain for his morning bath. Stepping from the fountain he somehow pulled a clean, dry towel from his sleeve and dried himself off.

Following this he took off his pack, and pulled out thread and ne...

Rough Draft, part 1, Chapter 159, Butcher of Gadobhra

BBeneath the earth, two people carefully moved along an ancient stone passage. Things were deceptive here. A small room might hide a narrow crevice that led to a grand passage way with several staircases descending to dead ends. Everything had to be mapped out and carefully noted in their journals. Plumb bobs were used to check the slant of walls and floors, and heavy crowbars thumped repeatedly against walls searching for hollow areas.

Orik and Dorry were having the time of their liv...

Rough Draft for Tunnel Rat chapter 86

(One of the tougher chapters I've had to write. How do you write dialog for not one, but two people who are smarter than you? I try to keep in mind that neither one has perfect information and is looking for knowledge. Wally is also has expectations based on human reactions, and Milo doesn't always react normally. Both have trust issues.  If anything seems really off, feel free to comment. )

In an unused room in the bowels of Section E, Milo had set up a room to talk to the AI cont...

Rough Draft of Tunnel Rat Chapter 85.

Trying to logically think like someone smarter than you is hard. This will certainly get some revisions. Often I write something for a couple of hours, but the next day wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Some good reference material is the 4th Chapter of Butcher of Gadobhra. It's a confusing chapter with a lecture by a professor on AI, that includes some world building about the quantum computers, and their evolution to the huge Quantum Fortresses that house AI like Wally. And then ...

Chapter 158 Wolves in the night. ROUGH DRAFT

As the merchant faded away, the Centurion turned to Eldren, the Runic Mage who saw to the teleportation pad. "How is our mana after that?"

Eldren saluted with a satisfied smile on his face. "A little over 78k. We actually gained over 4k mana on that exchange. The big stones down at Northguard are kept nearly full at all times, they won't ask us to shift any down. The accountant will be disappointed in not getting to charge a sixty-gold piece fee, but that's his ...

Chapter 157: Rough Draft

(Very rough draft. I write out the first draft, send to my wife for editing, then go back over it  again and possible add to the story, or rework things. Also add in tables. Then maybe a second edit. Rough drafts posted here will have typos that she'll catch later. This is a short chapter and also might be merged with something else.)

Roderick Kallvek, 2nd assistant merchant to the Great Kallvek, merchant of merchants, looked at the partially loaded wagon and thought that his fathe...

Situational Superiority

Fancy words for "Don't take a knife to a gunfight."

One side might be stronger than the other side and win 99% of the time. But that one time? That one time when the underdog stepped up and won? A great story. David and Goliath level story. Every likes that story, (except for Goliath's side.) Often the little guy wins because in this situation, he had an edge.

A lot of stories use the idea. 

The 300 spartans were the right guys in the right place at the right time, an...

Learning something New.

Greetings,
With over 2000 followers, and a few asking me about donating through Patreon, I added 'Set up Patreon' to my schedule. But Patreon is on a computer and counts as "New Fangled Stuff". Which means I know it's never going to be as easy as people say.

"You should try selling on Ebay?" But none of my friends had ever done it themselves....
"You should write a book!" But none of the people encouraging me had ever written more than a grocery list...
"You should just buil...