Category Archives: “His Robot Girlfriend”

Update: Patience is a Virtue

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Patience is a VirtueOkay. I found my USB drive with the pages of His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue on it and I am back to the grind writing.

I’m surprising myself with this book in two ways, the first of which I mentioned the other day. Looking back at His Robot Girlfriend, I was always a little embarrassed about it. It was one of my first books and I it just isn’t as good as I would have written it today. His Robot Wife was better, but I think it’s far from my best work. Reading through the first half of this new book, I’m pretty happy with the writing.

The second thing is, I’m surprised how easily this book is flowing. I haven’t had any writer’s block or difficulty in putting the plot together. Of course, like the first two books, this one is a more dialog and character driven tale. Plot takes a back seat, but there is one there– more than one. There is a plot for the book and there is a plot that will carry over into a series.

Well, back to work.

P.S. I’m playing around with the fonts on the cover. It’s a work in progress.

Update: Patience is a Virtue

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

Now that I have Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome in the can, I’m hard at work on His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue.  I’ve written a chapter and a half in the last few days, and am just past the halfway point now.  I’d really like to get the book done by the end of June, and I think that I can.  After June 6th, I’ll be out of school and able to devote all my time to it.  That doesn’t mean I won’t be working on it before though.

I went back last week and read the first seven chapters through and was surprised how much I liked the story.  That may seem weird, but that’s how it is sometimes.  You write and write and you can lose perspective about what you’ve written.  If you can set it aside and come back to it later, it helps.  Although it’s also pretty easy to fall in love with your own writing.  After all, you’re writing a story you would want to read.

Anyway.  I just finished writing a bit of dialog where several characters play The Last Supper game– where you list the twelve people you would like to invite to a dinner party.  Patience has her own unique list.

Now, if I could only stop losing my USB drive.  I lost it last week and it had two chapters of Astrid Maxxim on it.  Thankfully I found it had fallen out of my pocket and rolled beneath the bed.  Today I can’t find it, and it has two pages of Patience is a Virtue on it.  But I think I left it stuck in the computer at work.  I’ll find out tomorrow.

His Robot Girlfriend Audiobook

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Some enterprising person going by the name of Clay Mann has a running feature on YouTube called “This Week in Audiobooks” wherein he posts a computerized-voice audiobook each week.  He has just posted His Robot Girlfriend.  I didn’t have anything to do with this and hadn’t heard of it until I ran across it by accident, but it’s pretty well-done for a text-to-speech program.  You can also read along with the text.

I’m not sure where the text came from– possibly Manybooks, in which case, it’s not as well edited as I would prefer.  Also, comments to Mr. Mann are disabled.  I’d like to send him a hello and thanks.

Update: Patience is a Virtue

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

I haven’t had too much time to write, but I did manage a few pages this week.  I’ve been splitting my time between Patience is a Virtue and 82 Eridani.

I’ve gotten a lot of emails this month about His Robot Girlfriend and His Robot Wife.  People seem to be enjoying them and that’s great.  I wish I could tell everyone exactly when I will have the new book done, but I can’t.  I’m really planning to finish this summer.

I walked into school the other day and the first thing anyone said to me was “Four weeks till spring break, and ten more after that.”  So, I’m not the only one counting down.  I’d really like to get caught up during Spring Break, but I don’t know.  At least I’ll keep plunking away.  Whenever I get a page written I’ll have to give myself a little celebration.

His Robot Girlfriend Casting Call

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We’ve talked about casting actors to play the characters in my books before.  I’ve had all kinds of suggestions for who could play Patience, but I saw Emmy Rossum in the preview for Beautiful Creatures and knew immediately that she would be my new choice.  She looks like how I imagine Patience, and that is because she looks quite a bit like the young lady that I used as a model when I was writing His Robot Girlfriend.  When I think about Patience, I see the tall forehead, the big eyes, and the wide mouth.  That doesn’t sound all that attractive when I say it like that, but you can see that they all go together to make an altogether beautiful woman.  Imagine my surprise when after looking up her name on IMDB, I found out that she is also a singer and I had a couple of her songs in my “Current Faves” playlist the whole time.

Patience is a Virtue: Wanda

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

Wanda is the most important new character in Patience is a Virtue.  Like Patience, she is a robot– a Daffodil Amonte 2.  She is a bit on the short side and very curvy, with lots of wavy red hair.  She belongs to Ryan and was built to his specifications.

Wanda is far more robot-like than Patience and the latter becomes her mentor, teaching her how to be more human-like.  Wanda is shocked and frightened by Patience’s general disregard for the laws of robotics.

Having someone to tutor in the ways of the world has given me a chance to play with an entirely new side of Patience and it’s turning out to be a lot of fun.

Patience is a Virtue: Ryan

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

Ryan is a new character in this book.  He becomes an unlikely companion to Mike– unlikely because the two of them are really nothing alike.  Ryan is, or rather was, an outgoing boisterous fellow, and is a car salesman.  Recently his life has been turned upside down with the discovery that his wife was cheating on him and his subsequent divorce.

I was thinking about my stories the other day, and realized that I had numerous stories going on that all had cheating wives in them.  I don’t know why that’s on my mind, as my wife is as faithful as a Barsoomian calot.  I suppose it’s something that just tends to be on a man’s mind at a certain time in his life– a sort of evolutionary imperative, if you will.  But I have a cheating wife here, one in 82 Eridani, and one in Kanana the Jungle Girl (currently in limbo).  At least two of them will see the light of publication this year.

Patience is a Virtue: Harriet

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

Mike’s daughter Harriet has a much larger role in this story than she did in the previous two.  She was really just a background character in the first two books, so I’m enjoying fleshing her out now.  She’s become a real girlfriend for Patience, as well as a mom in her own right now.

Originally Mike had two kids, a daughter and a son, because I had two kids, a daughter and a son.  And while initially I did pattern a few traits after my own daughter, Harriet really bears little resemblance to her now.  Despite that, my daughter still refers to Harriet as “her character.”  I think this has less to do with the two of them being alike, and much more with the fact that I am very much like Mike.

When I first wrote His Robot Girlfriend, my idea was that there had been a resurgence in old-fashioned names, so Mike’s kids and the kids in his classroom would reflect that.  Later I made a few changes and additions, some of which didn’t hold with that idea.  Specifically, I changed the name of Mike’s son for some reason to Lucas, and I added a couple of other characters.

 

Patience is a Virtue: Mike

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

Mike Smith is the main character in His Robot Wife and His Robot Girlfriend.  He is Patience’s husband.  Of course he is in Patience is a Virtue.  It wouldn’t be a story without him.  I think much of the charm of the story is in Mike’s relationship with Patience.  Of course most if not all of Patience’s motivations in the first two stories was her devotion to Mike.

In this book, Mike is less central to the story, because it belongs much more to the robot.  Of course he is still there just as much as before and most of the best dialog at least in my opinion, belongs to him.

Mike goes through some medical problems in this book that mirror my own– specifically he tears the cartilage out of his knee just as I did.  This only makes sense, since of all my characters, Mike is the  closest to me.

Patience is a Virtue: Patience

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His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

As I mentioned yesterday, the new story is told much more from Patience’s point of view.  Patience is a Daffodil Amonte model robot and as such, can do quite a few things that human beings cannot.  Telling the story from her point of view gives me the chance to show what’s going on inside of her a bit.  For instance, she can carry on a phone conversation completely in her head, without verbally having to speak the words.  So, she can carry on a conversation with a person in front of her at the same time that she carries on a conversation with someone on the phone, and theoretically could be doing web searches and other actives while doing so.  In this story, Patience gets a little threatening– not physically, but she can after all, mess with your bank accounts, credit rating, and public records, all the while talking to you.  We also get to see a little more of why she does what she does.  For instance, she lets Mike get hurt if she thinks that saving him all the time would damage his self image.  And she bases her decision on which store to patronize based on whether the clerks are Daffodils or Gizmo robots.