Archive for the ‘ Parallel Ops ’ Category

Even blogs need a vacation!

Author: rja

Jun 1

I’ve been blogging here since mid-March but beginning today I’m switching to an abbreviated summer schedule. Instead of daily blogs, I’ll post news and information irregularly but at least once a week during the months of June, July and August. I’ll switch back to a more regular schedule on September 1st, just in time to follow the 2010 Baja hurricane season. If you’ve been following my blog, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed (the sugar packet just left of the coffee cup on the main page) so you’ll receive the new content whenever I post it.

Good news for Parallel Ops fans! Over the long Memorial Day weekend I completed two more chapters, so now I’ve finished Chapter 10 of each of the first 3 books: The Scientists, The Informants and The Guardians. Beginning today, my goal is to write 2 chapters per week until I finish all 3 books. Then we’ll publish and then I’ll start the 4th and final book in the series, The Teachers. Writing 3 books at once is turning out to be an interesting experience and I’m already considering ways to “pimp up” the Book 4 experience. One possibility is to let readers of the first 3 books take part in developing the story line for the series finale!

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Filed under: General, Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops

On Location…in Baja California Sur

Author: rja

May 28

Well, I guess I really spilled the beans yesterday when I mentioned that one of my new books was set here in Baja! I had intended to keep the locations secret until the books were released because how and where my characters end up is part of the fun. I’ll try to be more careful about the other 2 books and I’ll try not to tip you off as to which of the 3 books is the one set in Baja.

On the bright side, now that I’ve let the cat out of the bag (apologies to LaBete), I can discuss Baja and some interesting things I’ve learned about this area.

(Click to enlarge)

Up in the mountains southeast of La Paz are two little towns called San Antonio and El Triunfo (see my earlier post) but during the second half of the 19th century these mining towns were booming. Enough freight to support the population of more than 10,000 was hauled in and processed gold and silver was hauled out. I had always assumed that this traffic went down the western side of the mountain to and from La Paz but yesterday I learned that a bay to the east served as the “port” for all the ships that served the mining industry. Until recently, that bay was called Bahia de los Muertos – Bay of the Dead. Now with a name like that you might think this place would have a pretty interesting history but I checked into it and the name actually comes from the fact that the bay was (is?) full of dead-man moorings – huge blocks of concrete placed on the seabed and attached to floating buoys with heavy chains. These moorings were used instead of anchors to hold ships in place while they were being loaded and unloaded. So much for the intrigue! Interestingly enough, a few years ago a Los Angeles developer bought most of the shoreline along the bay and is building a huge luxury living complex there. He apparently felt that Bay of the Dead wouldn’t attract too many high-end buyers so he petitioned the Mexican government and got the name officially changed to Bahia de los Sueños – Bay of Dreams! Money talks worldwide, but nowhere is that more true than here in Mexico where everything – even a historical name – is for sale.

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Filed under: Novels, Parallel Ops

The writer’s strike is over!

Author: rja

May 27

Great News! The Mantarraya Writer’s Association (that’s me!) has finally agreed to go back to work and make some real progress on the Parallel Ops series. I’ve been pretty lazy lately, and I had the 2-week period when I was without my own computer. That problem got resolved late Monday afternoon, but since then my evenings have been filled with the series finales of Lost and 24. Tonight it’s the season finale of Chuck and then things should get back to normal. I will try to have chapter 10 of The Informants and chapter 10 of the Guardians finished by Sunday night and then I want to get on a much more aggressive work schedule. There will be just 31 weeks left in the year and that means I have to write 2 chapters a week to finish by December 31st – where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that I was making excuses for not meeting my original deadline of December 31, 2009!

As I look down the road and plan the rest of 3 novels, I realize something I’ve probably always known. The more exotic the location, the more fun I have writing. Of the 3 stories I’m working on now, 2 are set in far away locations and 1 is set here in Baja and it’s that local story that I’m the least excited about working on. The plot is just as good and the characters get themselves in just as much trouble, but I don’t have the personal pleasure of researching locations and reading about places I’ve never been. I guess I never realized how much that exploration and discovery impacted my writing until now. This is certainly a lesson learned for me but I’m sure I’ll find a way to get out of my slump with the local story and move forward. By the way, the other 2 novels are currently taking place in Washington, D.C. and the Caribbean but I’m not going to say which book is in which location – you’ll have to read them to find out!

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Filed under: Novels, Parallel Ops

Parallel Ops – a Progress Report

Author: rja

May 24

Yesterday on Facebook,  friend and Seeds of Civilization fan Jon H. poked me about my apparent lack of progress on my new series, so I thought this might be a good time to issue a formal Progress Report to Jon and the one or two other folks out there who actually read my books. 

As you may remember from one of my earliest posts on this blog, I’m currently working on a new, 4-book series called Parallel Ops and I’m writing the first three books in the series all at the same time because they take place along the same timeline. There are certain events that show up in multiple storylines, so keeping the 3 books in sync is important. I found that the only way I could accomplish this was to write them together – Chapter 1 of all 3 books, then chapter 2 of each, etc. 

I’ve currently completed 28 chapters of the series: 10 chapters of the first book and 9 chapters each of the second and third books. As soon as my replacement laptop arrives (see Life Without a Computer from a few days ago) I’ll get back to work and try to get caught up. I’ve spent the last week and a half planning my next few chapters, so I hope the writing will go quicker than normal because I still have about 60 chapters to write before we publish. Our current plan is to release the first 3 books all at once, in case anyone wants to read them all at the same time, the way they were written. Even if we decide to release the titles individually, over a period of time, the first novel won’t be released until all 3 are completed due to the way I’m writing them. 

As a reminder, here’s the lineup for the Parallel Ops series: 

Book 1 – The Scientists, featuring Jim Barnes
Book 2 – The Informants, featuring Linda McBride
Book 3 – The Guardians, featuring Tony Nicoletti
Book 4 – The Teachers, cast of characters TBA

The fourth book in the series won’t be started until after the first three are released and I haven’t decided yet whether it will share all, some or none of the timeline of the first three. Maybe I’ll let my readers decide!

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Waiting in the Wings – Supporting Cast of the Future

Author: rja

Apr 10

If you follow this blog, you know I’m writing the first three novels of my new Parallel Ops series simultaneously.  I write a chapter of The Scientists, then a chapter of The Informants and then a chapter of The Guardians. Last night I completed chapter 10 of The Scientists which means I’ve now completed 28 chapters of my project. While I still have a long way to go, many new characters have already been introduced. Here’s a small sample of those you will meet in Parallel Ops:

Sophie Hoffman is a graduate student and self-proclaimed social activist currently working on her doctoral thesis in Northern European Languages at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, Germany.

Sgt. Danny Miles is a young Marine assigned to the security detail of a major U.S. government research facility. A martial arts expert since he was six, Danny is a real life saver (literally).

 
 

Max Becker is a special agent with the BKA, Germany’s version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the orders of his boss, the notorious Colonel Wilhelm Kruger, Becker is on a mission he is sure will end in failure and embarrassment.

Javier Reyes is the same character you met in Triangle, the final book in the Seeds of Civilization series. This time he’s back as a major player. If you’ve read Triangle, you’ve probably already figured out which new book he’s in, but you won’t guess where he is!

Carlos Gonzales is a semi-retired underwater videographer and a volunteer with Sea Watch, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the oceans and their marine life. Carlos also served in the Mexican Navy and his experiences there prove to be a valuable asset.

Carley Quinn was born in a remote Mennonite community in the Orange Walk District of Belize. When she married a British construction worker her family disowned her and she hasn’t spoken with them since. After her husband’s untimely death, she spent three years fighting with the rebels in Guatemala.

Rob Jefferies was born in Gresham, Oregon and graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Computer Science. Before retiring to the Caribbean in 2005, Rob owned a successful software development company that specialized in banking and credit union applications.

Erik Mueller served as a decorated member of the U.S. Army Green Berets during the Gulf War but gave up a promising career in the military to become a ruthless soldier of fortune for a paramilitary group known only as The Six.

 
 

And, finally, there’s Michael “Buzz” Edwards. He makes appearances in all three books of the Seeds series and he’s already mentioned in each of the first three books of Parallel Ops. In Seeds we never really knew which side of the fence he was on but in Ops there will be absolutely no doubt!

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Filed under: Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops, Scientists

Jim Barnes – Live Long and Prosper

Author: rja

Apr 8

This is the last of a 4-part series in which I hope to (re)introduce you to the main characters in my Seeds of Civilization and Parallel Ops series of mystery/adventure novels.

    

Professor Jim Barnes makes a brief appearance in Chapter 3 of Tractrix, the first book of my Seeds series, but he officially joins the “cast” in Chapter 10 when Frank summons him to Las Vegas. Within hours, he and Frank are off to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to investigate an underground cavern complex that has been known to the Maya for more than a thousand years.

Jim BarnesAfter successfully deciphering the messages on the mysterious black spheres in Book 1, Jim is instrumental in determining the origin and purpose of some ancient objects his team discovers deep inside a Japanese mountain in Tsubute. But it’s his brilliant work with the submerged artifacts of Triangle that finally brings him the public recognition that has eluded him in the previous missions.

 In the fall of 2002, after three highly successful missions with NWIDI, Jim resigns from the university to become a scientist at one of the U.S. Government’s top research facilities. Based on his work with NWIDI, he is also a sought-after speaker on the subject of ancient lost civilizations.

To help you better understand Jim, here’s his back story prior to the Seeds series:

Jim Barnes was born in 1968 in Spokane, Washington where he attended grade school and high school. He graduated first in his class from Washington State University, in Pullman, with a degree in Anthropology. He went on to earn his doctorate in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington in Seattle where he taught for a number of years. As part of his post-graduate work, Jim learned to read and write Mayan and its ancient predecessor, Olmec. It is at a series of university seminars on these languages that Jim first meets Frank Morton.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a little about several of my “minor” characters from the first series.

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Filed under: Novels, Parallel Ops, Scientists, Seeds of Civilization, Tractrix, Triangle, Tsubute

Linda McBride – Just the Facts, Ma’am

Author: rja

Apr 7

This is the third of a 4-part series in which I hope to (re)introduce you to the main characters in my Seeds of Civilization and Parallel Ops series of mystery/adventure novels.

    

Although Linda McBride is introduced early in Tractrix, book 1 of the Seeds series, she doesn’t become a “main character” until she’s reintroduced in Chapter 26. By this time Frank, Tony and Jim are working together as an informal team and Frank asks Linda to join them as their principle researcher.

Linda becomes a much more prominent character in Tsubute, my second novel, when she’s inadvertently stranded on a remote beach in southern Japan and must make her way back to civilization through an underground cave system. She plays an even larger role in Triangle, the third book, when she and a Mexican national named Javier Reyes are asked to sneak into Cuba undercover and investigate strange happenings on the northwestern tip of the island. Later in Triangle, Linda finds her soul mate and her life forever changes.

In the Parallel Ops series, Linda is the main character in The Informants where her newspaper background becomes her new team’s weapon in their efforts against The Six.

To help you better understand Linda, here’s her back story prior to the Seeds series:

Linda McBride attended high school and college in Seattle’s prestigious East Lake area. Although Linda studied journalism at the University of Washington, she was more interested in investigating than writing and after graduation she took a position as a staff researcher with Seattle’s largest daily newspaper. In 2001 Linda was asked to assist Frank Morton and Tony Nicoletti as they investigated mysterious artifacts near Las Vegas that seemed to originate in Mexico’s Mayan ruins. When Frank formed a non-profit group to investigate other archaeological anomalies, Linda immediately signed on and remained an active member of NWIDI until its dissolution.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a little about NWIDI’s “Chief Science Officer,” Professor Jim Barnes.

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Filed under: Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops, Seeds of Civilization, Tractrix, Triangle, Tsubute

Tony Nicoletti – I’ve Got Your Back!

Author: rja

Apr 6

This is the second of a 4-part series in which I hope to (re)introduce you to the main characters in my Seeds of Civilization and Parallel Ops series of mystery/adventure novels.

    

Tony Nicoletti is probably the most colorful of my four main characters and the only one based on a real person. He and Frank first met in the jungles of Southeast Asia where they formed a bond that has survived the years even though they are very different people with very different experiences. Where Frank is a strategist and a planner, Tony tends to take the shortest path to an objective, leveling anything that gets in his way.

(click for a surprise!)

Although a softie at heart, Tony’s Special Forces background makes him a tough adversary. As Frank’s “Number 2,” Tony is often called upon to work solo on high-risk tasks or to lead the rest of the team out of imminent danger. In the Parallel Ops series, Tony once again has the most perilous mission and must confuse and harass the very people that want him dead.

We don’t know much about Tony’s years after the military except that he worked as an independent trucker hauling classified cargos between military bases in the continental United States. Although we never know what he carried in his eighteen-wheeler, we do learn that his contract with the government required that he maintain a Top Secret security clearance.

To help you better understand Tony, here’s his back story prior to the Seeds series:

Tony Nicoletti was born and raised in the suburbs of south Los Angeles. He enlisted in the Army in 1972 and served as a forward air controller in Southeast Asia from 1974 to 1976. Tony and Frank Morton met in June, 1975, when they were both assigned to a covert military operation in Laos, and they remained close friends until they formally joined forces in 2001 to create the non-profit investigative group called NWIDI. Tony was discharged from the Army in 1976 and returned to southern California to become a long-haul truck driver. When his 5-year marriage ended in a bitter divorce, Tony moved to Atlanta where he was recruited into a civil service job by his former Viet Nam commander.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a little about NWIDI’s female team member, Linda McBride.

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Filed under: Guardians, Novels, Parallel Ops, Seeds of Civilization, Tractrix, Triangle, Tsubute

Frank Morton – Take Me to Your Leader

Author: rja

Apr 5

This is the first of a 4-part series in which I hope to (re)introduce you to the main characters in my Seeds of Civilization and Parallel Ops series of mystery/adventure novels.

              

Frank Morton appears on Page 1 of Book 1 and he remains the main character throughout the entire first series. When you first meet Frank, he’s a grieving widower who has just experienced a very positive, life-changing event. He decides to use his good fortune to do something positive with his life and, coincidently, his old friend, Tony Nicoletti, shows up with a mysterious black sphere he acquired in a bar north of Las Vegas. Intrigued with the sphere and its cryptic symbols, Frank sets off for Las Vegas to learn more and the rest, as they say, is history.

While in Las Vegas, Frank begins to assemble his team – the characters you will meet over the next three days – and he eventually forms a non-profit organization called NWIDI to pursue his life-long interest in ancient archeological mysteries. After their successful mission in my first novel, Tractrix , they head off to a tiny Japanese island in the China Sea to explore a 9,000-year-old underwater pyramid  in Tsubute, and then to the Caribbean to explore the submerged ruins of an ancient city in Triangle, the third and final book in the Seeds series. While Frank is mentioned numerous times in the first three books of the Parallel Ops series, he doesn’t really have a speaking part. Maybe he’ll return in The Teachers, the final book of this series!

To help you better understand Frank, here’s his back story prior to the Seeds series:

Dr. Frank Morton grew up as a military “brat” and traveled from base to base until he joined the Air Force himself at 18. Trained as a Pararescueman, Frank is experienced in both sky diving and SCUBA diving. After an extended tour in Viet Nam, Frank graduated from the University of Washington and went to work for Boeing as an engineer. He married Donna Sommerset in 1982 and the couple settled in Seattle’s trendy Waterfront district.

 Frank earned his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering through a work-study program and in 1999 he was picked to lead a team of Boeing scientists and engineers developing components for the International Space Station. Two days after Christmas, 2000, Donna was killed in a freak automobile accident near the couple’s condo and Frank spiraled into a period of deep depression. On June 13, 2001, Frank was the sole winner of an $86 million lottery jackpot.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a little about NWIDI’s “Number 2,” Tony Nicoletti.

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Filed under: Novels, Parallel Ops, Seeds of Civilization, Teachers, Tractrix, Triangle, Tsubute

The Guardians – Dolphins, Diving and Danger on the High Seas

Author: rja

Apr 2

The third book in my new Parallel Ops series is called The Guardians and it features the infamous Tony Nicoletti. If you’ve read my Seeds of Civilization series, you know Tony as the “bull in a china shop” character who always manages to get things done – one way or another. In the Guardians, Tony is on a mission to keep an international group known as “The Six” from discovering a site so important that it could change the course of world events.

As the book opens, Tony is fleeing for his life from the very people he must soon challenge head-on. Having been out of contact with his former NWIDI team mates for more than five years, he sets out with a new cast of characters to confuse and distract The Six in ways only Tony could conceive. Using a live-aboard dolphin research vessel as cover, Tony and friends sail into the Caribbean and the jaws of the enemy to carry out their covert mission. The Guardians has my usual secondary plot and this one provides a glimpse of The Six and makes you wonder whether or not such a group could (or does) exist in our real world.

And here’s a little secret you’ll only hear on this blog: The Six show up in Book 1, The Scientists, when Professor Jim Barnes is handed a file by a stranger, and they appear again in Book 2, The Informants, when Linda and friends intercept a string of coded messages.

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The Scientists – Geeks of the World Unite!

Author: rja

Mar 31

This is the second in a three-part series about books in my new Parallel Ops series. Next week I’ll (re)introduce you to the 4 “stars” of my novels and provide a little of their back story that you may not know, even if you’ve already read the Seeds of Civilization series that precedes “POps.”

The Scientists features Professor Jim Barnes and an entirely new supporting cast. Before hooking up with Frank Morton, Tony Nicoletti and Linda McBride, Jim was a professor of anthropology but his activities during the Seeds series have turned him into one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient civilizations. While attending a conference in Europe he  learns of The Six and their sinister plan from another scientist. Jim makes a couple of strategic location moves during the course of the story, but The Scientists has my usual secondary plot and other characters will take you to Europe, Washington D.C. and more interesting places.

Although he’s never been the adventurous type, Jim picked up some of Tony’s bravado during their travels together in Seeds and he steps forward to lead a select group of international scientists against The Six by combining their resources – and the secrets of mysterious ancient artifacts they have all come to possess.

And here’s a little secret you’ll only hear on this blog: The Six also show up in Book 2, The Informants, when Linda and friends intercept a string of coded messages and they appear again in Book 3, The Guardians, where Tony Nicoletti is trying to distract them away from a site he’s sure they want to find.

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The Informants – A Peek Under the Cover

Author: rja

Mar 29

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m currently working on a 4-book series called Parallel Ops. POps, as we call it around here, is a follow-up to my first series, Seeds of Civilization, which ends with an event that sends the series’ four main characters in different directions. In POps, each of the 4 novels follows one of the characters as they attempt to understand the significance of the event and what to do about it. It’s difficult to write about POps without “spoiling” Seeds for those who haven’t yet read it, but over the course of this week I’m going to try to introduce you to each of the first three books. Next week I’ll (re)introduce you to the 4 “stars” of my novels and provide a little of their back story that you may not know, even if you read the Seeds series.

The Informants features Linda McBride, one secondary character from Triangle, the last book of Seeds, and an entirely new supporting cast. In her life before Seeds, Linda was a staff newspaper researcher and that’s part of the reason for the book title. Throughout the novel Linda is restricted to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, south of California and west of the Mexican mainland, but The Informants has my usual secondary plot so other characters will take you to Seattle, the Bahamas and more interesting places.

The “informants” (Linda and her friends) inadvertently tap into a stream of messages between a group known only as “The Six” and its eastern Pacific operatives. Suspicious of the group’s intentions, Linda and friends feel compelled to make the information public but must do so without revealing their own location or identities. What follows is a game of cat-and-mouse with a group so powerful that they control a private fleet of commercial cargo ships used to cover their activities around the world.

And here’s a little secret you’ll only hear on this blog: The Six show up in Book 1, The Scientists, when Professor Jim Barnes is handed a file by a stranger and they appear again in Book 3, The Guardians, where Tony Nicoletti is trying to distract them away from a site he’s sure they want to find.

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Filed under: Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops

Parallel Ops … More than Just a Series Title

Author: rja

Mar 24

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m currently writing three of the novels in my Parallel Ops series at the same time because they all take place along the same timeline. And by “same” I mean day-by-day, hour-by-hour and sometimes even minute-by-minute! The reason the timing is so critical is because there are several “intersects” throughout the books where a character in one book calls, emails or otherwise communicates with a character in another book. If the communication occurs at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 21, 2008 in the first book, it must also occur at the same time in the second book. In addition, all three books are, in very different ways, winding their ways towards a common concluding event and they all have to get there at the same time.

All this plot coordination requires some pretty careful planning, especially if I want to advance one of the stories quickly through time. To keep everything on track, I’m using a large chart and a consolidated Table of Contents spreadsheet where I track the dates and summary of events for each chapter in separate columns for each book. As I scan across a row I can see where each chapter is, book by book and I just have to make sure things are in sync when I insert an intersect. So far most of my intersects have involved only two books at a time but in Chapter 7 there’s a situation where the storyline in The Scientists, two separate storylines in The Informants and the storyline in The Guardians all have to be lined up within minutes of each other!

While keeping things in sync is a real challenge for me, I think it’s going to make for an interesting reading experience when I’m all done. Folks will be able to read each of the three books in succession, the way a series would normally be read, or they will be able to read them the way I’m writing them – all three at the same time. And when the first drafts are complete, I’m going to ask some of my proofreaders to do it one way and some to do it the other way, just to make sure I got it right.

You’ll notice that I’ve once again ignored the mysterious fourth book – The Teachers. I still don’t know whether it will occur along the same timeline mentioned above or start where the other three books end or have some overlap but I do know that it will be designed to be read after the other three. And I also know that it will be the last time we’ll be hearing from our old friends Frank, Tony, Linda and Jim. Seven novels are enough!

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Filed under: Novels, Parallel Ops

Writing a Novel x3

Author: rja

Mar 16

As many of you already know, I’m working on a new, four-book series called Parallel Ops. This series is a follow-up to my Seeds of Civilization series and begins five years after the conclusion of Triangle, the final book in the Seeds series. The concept of the new series is that there will be a book featuring each of the main characters from Seeds as they each, in their own way, try to make semse of the event that took place in the final pages of Triangle.

Three of the books take place along the exact same timeline (hence the series title Parallel Ops) so I decided to write all three at the same time. I write Chapter 1 of Book 1, then Chapter 1 of Book 2, and so on. When all the Chapter 1s are finished, I go back to Book 1 and start Chapter 2. It’s a ”novel approach” (no pun intended) becasue I have to keep three story lines going in my head but it’s also fun becasue I get to shift characters and geographic locations every few days.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned Book 4 yet – that’s becasue not much is known about Book 4, even by me! I haven’t decided whether Book 4 will chronologically parallel the other three or whether it will overlap and/or follow them. I may even leave that decision up to those who read the first three books! The one thing I do know, is that Book 4 will not be started until the first three are on their way to the printer.

I keep referring to the books of Parallel Ops as Book 1, Book 2, etc. but they do have names, so here’s the run-down, including the Seeds character featured in each:

Book 1 – The Scientists – Jim Barnes
Book 2 – The Informants – Linda McBride
Book 3 – The Guardians – Tony Nicoletti
Book 4 – The Teachers – TBA

If you’ve read the Seeds of Civilization series, you’ve probably already guessed why Frank Morton is the “star” of the mysterious Book 4!

Well, the cup is empty, so that’s it for today. See you again tomorrow?

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Filed under: Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops, Scientists