A three day weekend

It all started off knowing we had company coming for the weekend. I planned on not writing a single word. My in-laws brought their German Shorthair puppy with them.

Jagger is cute, but he’s not a tiny puppy any more. He’s big, but still thinks he’s a puppy. He never stops moving. He’s up, he’s down, he’s here, he’s there. He jumps up, makes you spill things, and even tries to pull things off the wall.

Call me crazy, but I kind of like him. The place was a madhouse, but if the bulldogs can handle it, so can I.

We went to dinner one night, but it was pretty mediocre compared to most of the places we go. We also watched movies. Friday night, I chose one called “Don’t Look Up.” I loved it. It’s full of dark snarky humor about the world we live in during a natural disaster. It has a top shelf cast, too.

My brother-in-law wanted to watch “The Last Duel,” Saturday night. I suggest you don’t waste your time. It has some moments, but I just didn’t feel it. Some of this has to do with the way the story unfolded. Open en media res, then tell the same story three different times from three points of view to get back to where we opened.

Old What’s Her Face had to go in at midnight last night. My MO on these nights is to stay up so she can sleep as much as possible. I started “The Eternals” before she turned in, then turned the television off after the film ended.

It wasn’t horrible, but I expected more from that cast. It was also hard to get over the “gotta catch ’em all” mentality. It was so inclusive that it felt like Marvel was shoving it down my throat.

After the movie, I had hours left with nothing to do. I opened my space opera and started reviewing. I’d worked myself to a point that I have to describe so some of you will get the problem.

I can’t make this tale into Lanternfish in space. There’s no piracy, and staying away from everyone is part of this spy mission. That means, I’ve milked space travel about as much as I can between the locations. In Lanternfish I could toss in a sea monster or a pirate battle. Space is big and empty.

My crew was at the turning point, but getting them from point to point had be minimized to a degree. I’d been stewing over this for weeks, but finally just wrote it. I like the way it turned out, and they discovered a much bigger problem than their tiny lives would have cared about.

I even moved on to how they’re going to deliver the news about what they discovered, because they invaded enemy territory to find this out. They had to shoot their way out, so it’s really an act of war. Except, they aren’t officially with any government. That won’t stop the bad guys from putting their propaganda department on it and making the good side look like the aggressors.

What I’m liking is all the problems my crew created while trying to do something both good and profitable. They may have to answer for some things now. That’s good tension, and I can use it as I move on. They could even have some enemies among the good guys.

I have a large section ahead where a kind of mentor can give them some focus and possibly put them to more productive work. They have a unique ship like nothing else in the galaxy. It could be used for more covert missions, but it’s in private ownership because of the laws of salvage.

This ship was simply missing for a hundred years, and was a relic of a previous war. My people found it and put it to good use. It’s theirs. My as-yet-to-appear mentor is a different kind of creature, and was present for this ship’s creation. He’s going to have some sympathy for my main characters.

Anything involving answering for crimes, the mentor, and what value their information might have is something for another writing session.

I failed to keep track, but it feels like about 8000 words to me. It was a great session. This particular tale is at 44K words right now. It’s a concern making word count without some things happening between locations, but I’m working on it.

Not too bad for a bonus I didn’t expect. Hope all of you had great weekends, too.