Category Archives: “His Robot Girlfriend”

Update: Patience is a Virtue

Posted on by
Reply

His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue

I’ve been working on Patience is a Virtue today and am just finishing up chapter six.  This book is plotted out to be 20 chapters, so I’m a little over 1/4 of the way through the draft.  As I’ve noted before, this will make it the longest Robot book in the series, and just from my own perspective, I think it’s the best one so far.

I jump back into it yesterday, making yesterday only the second day since the beginning of the year that I’ve met my New Year’s resolution writing goal.

As I’ve noted before, this book is much more from Patience’s point of view than the previous books.  I hope this makes it fresher.  It certainly makes it fun to write, as Patience, while not your typical robot, nevertheless does view humanity as a somewhat mechanical outsider.  Over the next few days, I’ll share some of what I’ve got cooking in the book so far.

Patience is Everywhere

Posted on by
3

His Robot WifeThe model that is featured on the cover of His Robot Wife and His Robot Girlfriend pops up all over the place.  Of course, there’s good reason.  She’s beautiful.  I see her on posters and ads and today I got a groupon-type email with her on.  I’m sure everyone is using her because her pictures can be purchased on royalty-free art sites.  I just hope some of the money is trickling back to her, wherever she is.

See the ad here.

His Robot Girlfriend Soundtrack

Posted on by
1

Alright, since I’m thinking about soundtracks, how about this for a His Robot Girlfriend/ His Robot Wife movie?

Daffodil Lament – Cranberries

All is Full of Love – Bjork

From a Shell – Lisa Germano

Settle Down – Kimbra

The Greatest – Cat Power

Trouble is a Friend – Lenka

I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked – Ida Maria

This Guy’s in Love with You – Herb Alpert

He Needs Me – Shelley Duvall

Everybody Hurts – R.E.M.

Previews: Part 3

Posted on by
2

It is the year 2037, when men are men and robots are cute.  Mike Smith and his robot wife Patience take a trip to the bottom of the world, and what they find there might just shake the foundations of their marriage and human/robot society.

As it says on the Previews page, this book is coming in 2013, but hopefully it will be early in 2013.  I’m in the middle of chapter six of 16 chapters.  If I can stick to my usual pace, I should have the draft done mid-March.  Allow about a month for editing and that puts it sometime in April.  I get almost daily requests for this book, so I hope it lives up to everyone’s expectations.  Personally, I think it’s so far the best of the three.

My Favorite Bits: Robot Stories

Posted on by
Reply

The other day, somebody asked me, “Wes, you are exactly like Mike in your robot books.  Is your wife anything like Patience?”  My answer was “My wife is pretty damned patient, but she’s no Daffodil.”

Mike is a lot like me, but I would say not 100%– 75 to 80% tops.  Still, many of the little stories and events in the books are taken from life.  In His Robot Wife, Harriet (Mike’s daughter) mentions the time that her father scared the crap out of a kid trying to bully her at the risk of getting fired.  Yup, that’s right from my life.

There’s a tidbit in the book where Jack (Harriet’s husband) is cleaning the puke out of his car because a neighbor he was trying to help vomited and caused a chain reaction.  This story comes from real life– thankfully not mine.  My brother-in-law experienced this.  His wife, like mine (they’re sisters) is always getting him to do something for people he hardly knows, and unlike me, he’s too nice to say no.  He ended up having to clean vomit from three or four other people out of his car.

In the new book, so far, there are fewer little tidbits from my own life, although I am channeling a few cruise vacations as Mike and Patience go on theirs.

My Favorite Bits: More Robot Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

Here are a few more details about the world of His Robot Wife and His Robot Girlfriend.

One of the main background events in His Robot Wife is the presidential election.  I used random names for the presidential candidates, but one of the vice-presidential candidates was named for a teacher I work with.  That was four years ago, and despite huge turnovers in our school district, we still work together.

One of the details that I was really proud of was the payNETime acount.  I needed something that was a cross between Paypal and the broader banking world.  PayNETime is pronounced “pay any time” and it spells NET in the middle.  I was really proud of myself on this one.

Mike and Patience live at 11 North Willow.  During my high school years, I lived at 11 Cottonwood.

The two main robot manufacturers are Gizmo and Daffodil.  Gizmo is another word for mechanism, of course.  Daffodil is the flower and is meant to evoke the idea of Apple.  There are numerous little parallels between Gizmo/Daffodil and IBM/Apple.  Add to that Daffodil is in Cupertino.

My Favorite Bits: Voting in the Future

Posted on by
Reply

So many things in His Robot Girlfriend were not that different than in our own times (because I don’t think the 2030s will really be all that different), that I struggled to add a few fantastic elements.  It is after all, a science fiction story.

One area that I changed up quite a bit from our present world was the presidential election that is occurring in the background of the story.  I made three parties the status quo in the stories, not because I’m an advocate of the Green Party (who is the third along with the Democrats and Republicans), though I do consider myself an environmentalist, but I just thought three parties would be more interesting.  I don’t think America will ever have more than two major parties (the 1912 election nowithstanding).  I also gave the US 57 states, including Cuba– also pretty unlikely.

Some reforms that I added that I do think might happen, and would be welcome, are Internet voting, and a single election time across the nation.  In the story, voting occurs between 7AM Eastern Time and 7PM Pacific Time.  Though states are currently firmly in control of election procedures, with the rate of technological change, I could see both of these things happening.

As always though, I chose these things not because I like the idea myself, but because I thought it was more interesting for the story.  If you haven’t read His Robot Girlfriend, check it out.  It’s free just about anywhere you can find ebooks, and has been downloaded to date 422,860 times.

My Favorite Bits: Mansfield Perk

Posted on by
Reply

In His Robot Girlfriend and the upcoming His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue, the local coffee establishment is based on the world of Jane Austen and is called Central Perk.  I admit that when I thought it up, I thought it was far more clever than it probably is.

A friend once asked me why Starbuck’s was named after a character from Moby Dick.  Did Starbuck drink a lot of coffee?  I used that conversation in His Robot Wife.  I also used an experience I myself had at Starbucks, when the barrista asked if she could “try something” and made me a bizarre frappuccino concoction.  In the story, she makes ice tea.  This came from a British cooking show I once watched where the chef made “American Ice Tea” which bore no resemblence to anything I’ve ever seen an American drink.  It was mostly orange juice with about 5 lbs. of mint stuck in it.

There are probably more of my own experiences in the Robot series than any of my other books.  This is because Mike, the main character is more like me than any other character.  There are characters I wish I was more like, but I’m not.

 

Newest Version of His Robot Wife Now Available.

Posted on by
Reply

As I write this, the newest updated version of His Robot Wife is now up at Smashwords and Amazon.  By the time you read this, it should be available for download at all ebook retailers.  On the information page, it says Revision 8-8-12.

On a related note, I am cruising right through the draft of Patience is a Virtue, but I’ve been adding a lot to the original outline– so much that I had to go back and create a new outline.  The result is that this book will probably be much longer than either of the two previous books.  His Robot Girlfriend was 39,000 words, His Robot Wife was 28,000.  Originally I planned the new book to be close to His Robot Girlfriend, but now the outline calls for 64,000 words.  Of course, as I mentioned, usually my drafts get shortened during revision.  But now you know part of what is taking so long.

My Favorite Bits: The texTee and other Technologies

Posted on by
2

When I wrote His Robot Girlfriend in 2008, there was no iPad yet.  There was a Sony Reader and an Amazon Kindle, and I imagined them replacing books, so I gave Mike a texTee.  I don’t know how I came up with the name.  Then the iPad came out and made me look kind of lame.  So when I wrote His Robot Wife, I updated the texTee and made it more advanced than an iPad, with a voice activated interface.  Along comes Siri, and I’m outdated again!

One thing they don’t have in my robot stories is a computer.  One of my ideas was that computers just don’t exist anymore as standalone items.  They have computers in everything.  People use texTees (Tablets), wriTees (word processor and more), and vueTees (televisions).  The vueTees have (according to the story): interactivity, inscope (don’t know what that would be), Infinet connections, and threed (probably something like 3D).  They also use t-pods (advanced ipods maybe) and something called an andTee.

I just added the andTee so there would be something that nobody knows about today that they have in the future.  I remember reading the cross-time novels by Harry Turtledove.  In those books, the people of the future have video games and music and something called a fasarta which is never explained.  Maybe the andTee and the fasarta are the same thing.

As I write this, I’m finishing up chapter four of Patience is a Virtue.  I’ve really got a groove going now, but what I’ve written is a lot more than is in my draft.  My books usually get shorter in revision, but this might well be the longest of the three books so far (not too surprising since the others are so short).  Keep an eye out here on your computer or your texTee for more updates.  Thanks.