New 'Helen' Story Under Construction

Dear Readers,

I was reading out of the enormous file, called Helen, from which all the Helen stories have been extracted, and I realized just how much I had stripped out of it, before re-forming the episodes into Helen at Westfield, and so on.

By now, people have read as much as they can stand from those books.  A very few determined readers have sprung for the nominal cost for those books; most new readers just download Yraid, which I have to admit has a lot of charm.  But some of the incidents and accidents that make the characters in the Helen story three-dimensional have been ripped out.  This is partly because some of those stories are sort of irrelevant to the main thrust of the overall plot.  But they are also partly because they reveal these characters to be somewhat less high-minded than I wanted them to be, as occupying the world in which Helen, the person, has been placed.  So my plan is to write a collection of vignettes, called Helen Out-takes, or something on those lines, and put it up on Smashwords. If I do, I will either make it free, or price it at 99 cents, like most of the other books.  Remember: I'm not a professional author, and don't depend on your payment for my livelihood.  If you manage to steal copies of these books from your buddies, I really don't mind; except, of course, I would never know the actual number of people who have bought the books (and hopefully read them).

Chronologically, these stories will take place after Helen returns from Hollywood, and go on from there.

For those of my readers who are wondering whether I'm still babysitting the house with all the animals: no; I'm back home, where I live.  The people for whom I was house-sitting have been back for close to a month; and I said my fond farewells to the fur-babies, giving them as much loving as they could stand, and left before my friends arrived back.  I did not want to deal with any viruses they were bringing back from parts unknown, though I believe they're as careful---or more careful---than almost anybody else I know.

OK, back to work.

Kay

Going Beyond the End of the Helen Story!

Well, I’ve succumbed to the disease that all writers of series are prone to being infected with, namely being unable to end the series!  Helen’s Concerto was a perfectly good ending of the Helen series (even if I could make a few edits that would make it really a fantastic book in its own right).  But I wanted to depict how the couple handle the perfect storm which has been our lives the last few years.

I had remembered writing roughly 45 pages of the new book, but I was wrong!  I had actually written 53 pages.  (I know; not a huge deal, but as lethargic as I am now, this is a big difference.)

Kay

Update On an Update!

Dear readers, and fans and stuff like that:

The other day, I happened to get myself Adobe Digital Editions, which is (as far as I know) just another ebook reader.  To my horror, the book I had chosen to read—Helen and Lalitha—had random paragraphs in boldface!!!  This was beyond horrible; I hate when that sort of unexpected thing happens.

I hurried to check the original Word file, and there was nothing that could have caused this peculiar effect.  Either I had noticed this problem and proceeded to fix it, and then forgotten about it, or ... I don’t even know what else it could be.  Now that I'm charging 99 whole cents for this book, it behooves me (word of the month) to give readers as error-free a book as possible.

Not just that book, but all  of the books need to be repaired in one way or another.  But, for some reason, maybe from staying indoors too long, my energy level is way way down, and I only sit at my computer about once a week, so at this rate, it will take the whole year, or a big chunk of it, to get all the books fixed up.

OK, here I go, to link to this post on Don’t Wait For The Movie!

Stay safe, and try to stay home,

Kay.

My First Experience of Helene Grimaud

I was idly cruising around on YouTube (having been fed an enormous lunch by some friends who were visiting me sort of illegally.  These are the people with whom I visit whenever I visit, so we're all going to get sick together, or we're not going to get sick.)

Anyway, a link attracted my attention, it was a Brahms piano sonata, played by Helene Grimaud.  (There are some accents I must add to her name; I don't know enough French to do it on my own, I must go check the spelling somewhere.)  So I clicked, and---I was listening through headphones, because at least one other person was also on their phones, listening to something or other---and my socks were completely knocked off!

I have never been much of a pianist; I can play just enough to entertain myself.  And I had seen Brahms music lying around the house of my music teacher, and---can you believe it?---it is written in three lines!  I'm going to find an image of Brahms piano music and put it on the side here.  Playing piano music on three staves is just insane.  But, oh my goodness, not only was it amazing, she was just beautiful.  She had cut her hair short, for this video, and ... well, if I were a pianist, I would want to look exactly like her.

Unfortunately, I have bought into the long-hair philosophy; sooner or later I shall have to get rid of it, and begin to look hip, even if I'm not actually hip.

Then, I stumbled on this cover of a song by David Byrne, by a young musician whose name is Joshua Turner: https://youtu.be/ROOmeQHf6dA

He says that it's all live, but you can't overlay tracks like this unless some of them are recordings.

Now I like David Byrne, and Brahms piano sonatas!  I think the secret to living fully is knowing what to click on!!!

Kay Hemlock Brown

News and Updates

Well, the new cover for Helen On the Run, is now well known.  (I don't think the cover has enhanced sales very much!)  I think the demographic that these books are aimed at is somewhat economically disadvantaged, which would explain that the vast majority of those readers tend to download them only when they're free.  (jk; sarcasm alert: I've made no secret of the fact that I do not hold my breath waiting for sales.  But nor do I want my stories to be the lowest-hanging fruit on Smashwords, pricewise.)

Now that the dynasty of president #45 is drawing to a close, I can take up completing---or at least, continuing to write---the story of Helen's and Sita's life after the events of Concerto.

It isn't going to be quick, because each time I re-read what I've written, I'm seeing purple prose that really does not belong there, and doesn't move the story along!  Of course, what happens after a couple gets established is---well, purple prose, and all that.  But that doesn't mean that I have to put it down in black and white.  (I'm regretting the little that sneaked its way into Yraid, but if I took that out, there would be very little left.  In fact, I think I failed to describe exactly what attracted the two together, except minor details of physical appearance.  But sometimes, you know, Chemistry just can't be explained.)

Here is the image I used for my own copy of the ongoing Helen+Sita project.

Kay

Exciting News: 'On The Run' Will Get (has got) a New Cover Illustration!

Out of the several major episodes of Helen's story, only a few have the original Frankenstein covers left; our artist HALCHROMA has been steadily painting covers for them, one every couple of months.  (She puts all her requests in a queue, and now its my turn again.)

At the time I first uploaded these stories to Smashwords, I did not have any way to obtain satisfactory quality original art, and I had a really flexible piece of software that could do easily what Photoshop does, slowly and painfully.  So, I collected bits of images from everywhere, but mainly from old photographs, and sometimes advertisements, and often fragments of features of images, many of them from royalty-free sources, and so on.

The original cover for Helen On The Run: The Lost Years is at right.  At first, it was just an image of Helen in a hard hat, and looking ready to bang some nails into a stud or two.  Later, I added a background of a pregnant girl lying on a grassy meadow (something that never occurs in the story; pregnant Helen is teaching at a boarding school).  As you can see, Helen is wearing a reflective vest, something only highway workers wear, and HALCHROMA has agreed to take it off.

She showed me an image of Helen wearing a plain vest, with no reflector strips, but I requested for that to be removed, and a tool belt put in instead, and I'm waiting for her reply.  There are tool vests, which she may like better . . .

More later,

Kay

Helen, the Character

 After I had written the beginnings of the Helen story, until Lalitha happened along, I did not like the way Helen's character was developing.  I can't remember, but Lalitha had been introduced, I think, as a means whereby I could reform Helen's character, and present her as someone with at least a few saving graces.

But many of you know that I don't maintain close control over the stories; I allow them to have some sort of autonomous control over themselves, and it turned out that Helen had had amnesia and so on, and at this point, I actually left the story for a while.

I turned to Alexandra, and Jane.  Those two stories went in opposite directions; Alexandra in a serious direction (though it was superficially silly and childish, to begin with), and Jane in the direction of erotica.  But no sooner than I begin a project with the intention of making it, you know, sexy, I have second thoughts, and go in and strip out all the gratuitious sex.  (Obviously, a hyperactive superego, as they say.)

When these non-Helen stories began to work out really well, I looked at the Helen files, with great regret, because it seemed that I had lost a wonderful opportunity to write about a musician, and strayed into writing about a spoiled brat instead.  So, a year or so after the Helen story had been abandoned, and I had mostly forgotten how it went (or more accurately,  how it was supposed to go), I got this idea of writing a serious hard science fiction story.

In Science Fiction, hard science fiction is a genre in which only plausible extrapolations of known science takes place.  Soft science fiction is, in contrast, a genre where almost anything can happen, and the science is about mysterious things in the very distant future, that approach magical effects.  So, Music on the Galactic Voyager was a story--about Helen, just in case you were wondering--where I grab Helen out from around the time of Helen at Westfield, except that Erin and James have not yet come into the story.  (You should think about Voyager Helen as a different person altogether.)  This story gave me the opportunity of introducing a completely reformed, normal, well-behaved Helen, without all her over-the-top characteristics.  So, there are similarities between the two Helens, and differences.

Similarities:  Both Helens are musical geniuses; both can sing, both play the violin and the piano.  Both have well-developed libidos, and both are lesbians.  Both like to teach, and both are familiar with folk song, and both play the guitar.  Both have some skill in unarmed combat.

Both have diabetes; I think that must have been one of the last things that Helen discovered about herself, before she was abandoned by me (while I wrote Voyager).

Differences: The Helen of the Voyager has never had children.  She has never had amnesia.  She has had an unhappy affair with Lalitha, and with some other woman, I probably meant Anne, the ballerina with great allergies, or perhaps Lorna.

I have been reading Voyager, and I was struck with how serious the story was.  (Hard Sci Fi ends up being rather serious, because of the subject-matter, and because of the mindset of the authors, I believe.  Alexandra is also sci fi, but more as an alternate Earth, rather than a futuristic setting.  It is in the distant future, but not a dystopian one.)

Writing these stories enables me to be several different Kays; it is almost as if I have different personalities in each story.  Yraid is yet another new, crazy Kay.

Well, I have to go.

Kay