Holidays

I'm on holidays!

Be back in September! I've passed through the 100,000 words boundary! (Over 400 ms pages!)

And I'm reading Scott Oden's Memnon! Whoo! I love holidays, don't you? :-)

Laters (I may have intermittent Internet access, like right now...)!

KALLISTI!

I got a story

I have travelled to the web site of Ursula K. Le Guin.

For those who doesn't know, she is a writer. A wonderful writer.

She was the one that introduced me into Science Fiction, with her The Left Hand of Darkness and later with her The Dispossessed. Those are wonderful books, indeed. She also wrote Fantasy, the Earthsea saga. And lots of other wonderful stories (one that comes to mind is The Word for World is Forest, for example).

And I read this small article she wrote a bit ago:

Ursula K. Le Guin: What Makes a Story

And my eyes sparked, and the hint of a smile insinuated itself on my face as I became enlightened.

I have a story to tell. I have a space to share, rooms to visit, and different rythms and movements, a variety of offerings to the readers to explore a fragment of our History, and a part of what's made us be the way we are right now.

I have a story that's relevant, that has the potential, if I do my job as writer well enough, to move the readers, to give them ample space and time to re-create themselves in another world, that may provide them something to help them grow a bit more, to become a little bit more conscious of themselves.

I had some doubts about the way I am telling it, and the way it's showing itself, but she is right, I just have to provide the fertile ground, the refreshing water, the nourishing Sunlight, and some gentle breeze to oxigenate it, and the story will flouring, with every reader, from our Past to the Present.

Yes, The Libyan is a story, and I will work to make a great story out of it. Because it deserves to be told, to breath and live and spread, because it's my duty to make it worth of such privilege.

By the way, at the brink of the 100,000 words boundary, I am about to start writing the Battle of Memphis: the parties are moving to their respective places, the players are in front of their cards, the writer knows the script. iaci aleam!

ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗ

Luring the Enemy

Update: $ perl Meta/wc.pl Inaros_more_20060809.txt 2>/dev/null
W: 97925 (MP: 391.7, PP: 195.85), %: 81.6041666666667
gilgamesh@uruk:~/personal/Inaros/2006$

Almost at the 100,000 words boundary... :-)

And, yes, how do you, as a general, manage to lure your enemy into battle? Because the enemy wants not to go, he's not, after all, silly, uh? ;-)

OK, this is the dilemma that Megabyzos is facing at the moment. And the solution he has found is, if I'm allowed to say so, pretty clever.

Pharaoh (Inaros) doesn't want to get out and face the might of the Persian army that routed his siege army at Pelusion, which has managed to surprise them by arriving at Memphis much faster than anyone would think possible, and has joined forces with the army inside the sieged White Castle of Memphis, which is comprimed by the remnants of the Persian army raised to fight at Papremis, and some reinforcements arrived from Upper Egypt (mainly a squadron of Jew fighters from Elephantine).

Pharaoh, therefore, refuses to fight. With the Greek camp by the river, on the North of Memphis, and the main camp set slightly to the Southwest of the town, he can easily counter any attempts to assault any of the sites, to intercept arrivals from the South (for example grounded troops, not by river, as he only controls the Nile from Memphis). And what happens when you, as a young, fiery soldier, who's walked from Tyre, Syria, to Memphis, Egypt (about 800 km according to googleearth) fighting Canaanean rebels, then bandits, desert dwellers, rebel Egyptians, Libyans and Greeks, and then some (real, sand-only) desert travel for over half a year, just to arrive to your destination with your comrades and find out that the enemy doesn't want to fight?

You get angry.

Very angry.

:-)

Tomorrow (if not today) I'll start writing the first games before the Big Clash.

The Battle of Memphis is about to arrive. Rejoice! (sortof)

BELLISSIMÆ