Will's Good Idea for the Week of 5/31/20

You know, all the Soviet coup stuff in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Sverdlovsk, etc etc, really should be...

[No, don't say it-Ed]

Really could be it's own novel.

[Oh, fuck no....-Ed]

I mean, we could. There's really no reason....

[Here's a reason jerk-store customer*: you said readers deserve to know how the war ends-Ed]

Yeah....maybe you're right.

[Maybe? Put this 'idea' of yours in the no-no-square.-Ed]

Ok.

*Reference

ANZACs to Nederlandse

World War 1990: Nederlandse began as a short story. It was supposed to be our December, 2018 project.  It's a good book. Nederlandse is the story of the Netherlands in crisis, told in four loosely connected short stories, Dutch I Corps, the PM, RNN De Ruyter, the Poletei of Klazienaveen. This makes Nederlandse a little different than the other books in the World War 1990 universe and that's a good thing. Nederlandse challenged us as a writer.

We're quite pleased. 

[You wrote it so, yeah-Ed]

You'd be surprised. Upon finishing ANZACs we were kind of 'meh'. Meaning this was not the novel we sought to write. We vaguely remember wanting the ANZACs to drive on Hanoi as the SAS secured the city. The facts made this unlikely and we didn't realize it till we were about halfway through.  We salvaged the story and ANZACs is okay [said in an uptalk]. The Aussies bought ANZACs, but they didn't like it. Click here to read the savage revues. The execution is flawed but ANZACs is still a great idea.

Which brings us back to Nederlandse. the Dutch will buy this book. But we don't expect them to like it. There's too much about the Netherlands we don't know, get or understand. There's a million details that'll be slightly off, even after employing a Dutch beta reader.

But it's still a great idea.

Get Dutched

We've read through the World War 1990: Nederlandse MS. We need to write the intro, we need to write the outro. Otherwise it's as good as we can make it. There's little more we can do to World War 1990: Nederlandse. At some point the artiste must decide, that's it, that's the book.

Our artist has delivered the maps. We'll be sending the MS to Debbie soon. We anticipate the book cover soonish.

We're going to make one more effort to find another Dutchman to give the MS a look. But we're not going to worry about keeping Dutch readers happy, either. We're not Dutch and there are a zillion things about the Netherlands we don't understand. Is it perfect? No. As someone said, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/1/2020

Nederlandse is going into the sit phase till April.  We're writing the Nuke thing this month. We need a title. The War of '75? I dunno. This will probably be the showcase story for the compilation. The format is a speech, a meeting, a vignette.

Saturday Updates

We will be breaking our no work Saturday pledge.

We haven't released a novel in a year.

Nederlandse is 75,000 words. End of the month for a rough (?).

Three Seas is in final production. The cover is being designed. Debbie has the MS. We'll need to read the proof. Either the first of April or May.

Oh, boy did we have a great, great, great idea for the short story compilation last night. 

Speaking of, we took a pair of beautiful blondes to the daddy-daughter dance:

Getting a haircut today.

Starting French over, we are now on French I lesson 20. Took us a month and we're totally getting it.

Splitting the running from the rest of the cardio we had a solid week of working out. Less time but used more efficiently. We spent an hour on the treadmill, holycrap.

One Year into the Pickled Herring

Oh look what we were posting one year ago today:

OK, there it is, Before the Weser, the Dutch I Corps fighting a delaying action as a fresh Soviet Army advances west, southwest after the Battle of Bremen.

We're talking 3+ Nederlander divisions occupying the area in and around Cloppenburg.

We're starting today.

Now, do you people really need another story where a corps commander is ensconced in his HQ over seeing a corps level battle?

Asking for a friend.

You do, don't you? You just read all about the Battle of Point Wilderness and Route Blue in Polish Storm and you're thinking, Yes, by Adon's Ban I want more of that!

You fucking people.

And one year later we're wrapping up World War 1990: Nederlandse. I kill me.

Since then we've discovered a few first rate Cold War era Dutch Army sites and made some new friends.