Date night, etc.

We’re flat broke right now, which is becoming a common situation. We’ve been holding a gift card we received at Christmas and today was the day to use it. It’s to an upper level restaurant called Barbacoa.

They seated us on the shady patio right beside the lake. Here is the view from our table.

Our meal was wonderful, and it was nice to spend some quiet time away from the house even for a couple of hours.

On the writing front, I still managed around 1800 words today. I used the voyage to create a lull between the action scenes, but kept things lively enough so they aren’t boring.

They arrived in a neutral country with the intent of conducting business. This is the one I think needs a better name. I’m calling it Tusconi for now, but hope to change it later.

Tusconi is a neutral country, and intends to keep it that way. They do business with everyone.

Lanternfish is at anchor, but they are under multiple fifty-pound siege cannons from the Tusconi, Tuscans, Tuskers, whatever I can call them.

Their enemies are also at anchor in the harbor, and other guns are covering them. Tusconi will buck no hostile activity, and yet the crackling energy is present. Any hostilities between these enemies would be fatal at the hands of the siege guns.

I use a storyboard, but all I have about this stop is the crew picking up ordinance. I need to figure out a different kind of tension for this section. Everything doesn’t have to be naval battles at sea. (But I still need to figure it out.)

My hope is to engage in some snotty dialog with the enemy captain or something. I might be able to mislead them as to where Lanternfish is headed somehow. Maybe learn more from them than they intend to give.

Maybe my pirates can goad the enemy into starting a fight, and let them pay the price for doing so. Could work.

It’s a different kind of section, and I may need a different mindset to get through it. Tusconi is even welcoming to monsters as long as they behave. The root monsters never behave. It might be fun to have them running around in plain sight for a change.

I’m pretty happy with my last fictional country, so my fingers are crossed here. If it takes me longer to work this section, so be it. I am not giving myself any deadlines on this one.

After they leave, they will be fully equipped and armed. The story will change to one of active pursuit of the end goal, with enough muscle to back it up. I’ll probably let them engage in a bit of piracy along the way.

While the end goal applies to the main characters, the bulk of the crew is looking to get rich at some point. A happy pirate crew tends to follow orders as opposed to one that wonders what’s in it for them.