Russian Suspense Fiction - The "Pinch" Blog

“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.” - Ayn Rand

A Pinch in Saint Petersburg

Interactive Suspense Fiction

Release Candidate 4 has been in the hands of the Quality Control team since yesterday and initial reports say we're ready!

I'm taking out one more week to err on the side of the caution -- A Pinch in Saint Petersburg will be on sale on May 24, 2010!

As with Saints in Sin City, A Pinch in Saint Petersburg is delayed to launch because of ongoing inspection of all the different plot threads within the story. That means we can't publish until each of three primary ways the story's plot can go - and the related permutations that can change the ending - is exhaustively tested.

As an Implementor I feel I'm done. I need to add some finesse and finishing touches but I pass my own critical litmus test; I would feel confident putting A Pinch in Saint Petersburg on sale today "as is".

That's my artist's litmus test. My litmus test as a Royal Geek is ongoing. Are all the bugs worked out? Does everything play out smoothly? Are logical errors addressed? Is everything functioning as intended?

So there we go -- the launch is delayed. Not because I have writer's block. Not because I'm procrastinating.

How long will the delay be? Not long at all. A few days at best, a couple of weeks at worst.

As a former frequent flyer I've grown fond of airport lingo. "Wheels down" "In the air" and one of my favorites "Pushing back". Pushing back in airline lingo means you're leaving the gate and truly starting your journey.

My use of the term "pushing back" is not so exciting. That's because I'm pushing back the release date of A Pinch in Saint Petersburg. But not by much.

I'm still going to set my personal land speed record for launching an interactive fiction title from inception to release but that's not going to happen on March 28th.

First and foremost - the title is just not ready yet. Alpha 3 is being dissected and analyzed by testers even as we speak. Alpha 4 (to be renamed Beta 1) will be sent this Friday and everything is coming along very nicely. But it's just not ready. No one has yet reached any of the possible story endings which means I need to wait. I need to finish out the rough edges but - more importantly - since not one member of my quality control team has successfully finished A Pinch in Saint Petersburg yet there is no possibility of releasing it.

Because each and every possible plot twist, logical move and ultimate outcome must be tested. Until that's happened I'm just not going to publish it. I feel it's ready in the sense there's nothing more I wish to add or change. But I can't know it's ready until a sufficient number of people have run through the story to the very end. In the antique arm of publishing this is known as editing.

Editing a linear book is easy enough. Just read and remark so the writer can rewrite when necessary,.

Editing interactive fiction is much more complicated in the same sense writing interactive fiction is much more difficult than penning a conventional work of fiction; there are so many moving parts, so many non-linear jokers in the deck just waiting to pop out and surprise you.

What's my second reason? Passover is just a few days away and I'll need to devote a little more time to getting everything ready for the holiday while cutting back other, less important things for a little while.

While I'm waiting on my beta testers to send me more of their interactive transcripts, observations and bug reports I'll start sketching out the the introduction to Vanguard. And maybe Grand Damned also. I'm on fictional fire here.

Not just because today is International Women's Day - a massive holiday in Russia and across Europe - but also because it looks I will make a launch deadline on the second try.

Usually I blow through deadlines like a Howitzer blasts through log cabins but not this time!

I initially set a December 2009 which was, admittedly, far too ambitious. My second shot at a deadline - early spring - is on target. My announced date for launch of A Pinch in Saint Petersburg on March 28th is holding true.

Sure I'm being barraged with bug reports but that is not slowing me down. A major new plot element was crafted today and will be fully implemented tomorrow. I had a nugget of the idea late last year, spent days slaving over it and it blossomed into full bloom today while I was on the treadmill at the gym. Not the first time I had an amazing, entertaining idea while steaming along to nowhere at full speed and probably not the last.

Another plot twist came to me this morning during my usual crack-of-dawn-writing-while-the-world-sleeps sessions. You just can't beat writing at 0600 hours (or 0-dark-hundred) as retired Navy SEAL and fellow fiction writer Richard Marcinko calls it.) Why? The phones aren't ringing. My family (and most of our city) is asleep and I am mentally disciplined to NOT check email. The whole world is on voluntary pause leaving me free to frolic with fantastic fiction without interruption.

One or possibly two of the audio clips I recorded on my iPhone contain some hints of what I've got brewing today.

I specified the year of the release date in response to the skeptics out there who've watched me blown more deadlines than I am comfortable to admitting to. To be honest, Saints in Sin City was the latest, most delayed piece of interactive fiction in my career. It's multi-year delay set the worst kind of record for me.

It's seems only right to set the best kind of record yet; releasing my next interactive suspense fiction thriller just four months later.

A Pinch in Saint Petersburg successfully compiled at 12:22PM Eastern Standard Time today!

Here's a story hint - there are three major branches of story endings. Two of them have already been completed.

The third branch will be completed this work leading to Alpha testing on February 28th.

Let's see if I can make one of my self-imposed deadlines on time for a change. That would certainly be a first.

Meanwhile here are some pictures of the Hermitage I snapped with my iPhone while waiting online with Nadia to purchase our tickets back on August 25th, 2009.

Some of these photos may seem boring or pointless until you stop and consider that every detail is incorporated into my interactive fiction titles to deliver realism to the reader that is not possible in conventional works of fiction. Full sensory immersion into my novels is one of my signatures as an Interactive Fiction author.

Just today I took a shot at compiling "A Pinch in Saint Petersburg" for the first time and sliced through all obvious bugs for two hours. This was after a one hour Implementing session where I added some important character interaction critical to delivering "you are there" reality in my latest work of suspense fiction.

I stopped just short of doing a full compile when I realized I had to add fifteen or so more locations that I referenced in the source code but didn't yet complete. I settled for adding two more rooms that were in easy reach.

All told I'm very proud of my progress. I sat down to serious coding right after we returned from our field to trip to Russia at the beginning of September. Just five short months later and here I am taking a shot at compiling the story into a (somewhat) finished product.

Compared to the two years or so it took me complete Saints in Sin City we're in the fast lane here. I attribute my lightning-fast progress to my new work ethic; I make it a point to sit down and write six days per week. Some days I do a lot, other days precious little but every day I am writing something. This regimen maintains my momentum and my sense of commitment forever foremost in my frontal lobe.

With a complete compile in reach we all know what that means -- alpha test is right around the corner. Maybe February 28th? With a wedding, Valentine's Day and Nadia's 30th birthday all happening this could be tricky.

The day I was wheels down in Russia I hit the ground running with Nadia at my side. In a past life I was a corporate road warrior so I learned the trick to beating jetlag early on. I had a can of Red Bull with me just in case but I ended up not needing it. I saved it for a delicious Raging Bull some days later.

Pushkin's writing never really grabbed me despite his accomplishments and undeniable talent. Dutifully, I made the pilgrimage to his home all the same. What writer worth his salt could refuse? I was more moved by the noble yet foolish way he died than anything the man ever wrote.

I had an electric interlude with Nadia so my time spent there was enjoyable. Taking off my shoes and slipping into silly cloth slippers before setting foot in the museum was the second most memorable event. Not able to speak a word of English for fear of being charged triple the price for a ticket was fun. (Russian travel fun fact: Russians pay a pittance for admission to practically every museum and point of interest while tourists are unapologetically assessed admission on average treble what a Russian pays. My wife is Russian so we played that card every chance we could. I was only too glad to let her do all the talking and hear her melodious voice.)

Crawling through the museum as our guide droned on in rapid-fire Russian that I could hardly follow, I mumbled some Russian of my own to Nadia here and there. I'm far from fluent in Russian but functional enough to ask for a newspaper, the telephone, the location of the bathroom or a beer or a second helping of borscht. All the critical things, of course.

My gentle caresses, warm touches and stealthy strokes made the time pass quickly and pleasantly while providing all the elaboration I needed whenever my quirky command of the Russian language failed me in communicating with my wife.

I felt a bit like a spy at those times. James Bond actually did slip into Russia a couple of times and so have I.

(Note - this visit is pulled out of the chronology of my most recent trip to Russia out of pure inspiration.)

As a fan of classic fiction as much as modern meanderings of prose I was looking forward to my visit to Vladimir Nabokov's museum on August 27, 2009. My barely-functional linguistic skills in the Russian language not withstanding I came away markedly moved by my visit. Luckily, my lovely wife Nadia was on hand to provide on-demand translations of printed material and running commentary of the video presentation played in Nabokov's own library.

Language barriers became liquid things that dripped away as I walked his library and admired the treasures standing like proud soldiers in their bookcases. The history of encroaching Communism and Nabokov's response and ultimate escape moved me beyond words.

Nabokov reached so many people not because of any one language but because he so deftly tapped into primal human emotion that transcends the written word. I made it a point to observe his power as I committed myself to improve my own skill in these quarters.

On a less-loftier note I was touched by how well Vladimir Nabokov's son is doing by way of the book royalties he enjoys on an ongoing basis. I so much wish the same for my own dear Milana and her siblings yet to come.

Then I chided myself - Write for the wonder of the story and the rest will naturally follow!

Change 1: My wife and daughter are sick forcing cancellation of our regularly scheduled weekend day trips. To fight off boredom as wifey and daughter rest and recuperate I decide to write.

Change 2: The working title of this suspense fiction thriller is changed! Hermitage was nice - even exotic- but too mediocre. New title - "A Pinch in Saint Petersburg". It's a non-sexual double entendre if ever there was one.

(Side note - I was all set on "Pinched in Saint Petersburg" but wrote it off as being too cute)

Change 3: I knew in advance I'd need to "go dark" with my feelings to convey the realism that is the linchpin of the plot. I'm dark now and it's a scary fucking place prone to triggering my primal feelings as a father. I wrote the introduction just a few minutes ago and it damned near made me cry from the agony of frustration coupled with rage with a chaser of powerlessness with a tiny drop of ultimate hope.

Change 4: A December release is impossible. "A Pinch in Saint Petersburg" won't be done and out the door in December. Have heart - it won't take two years like Saints in Sin City did either.

Saints in Sin City (finished and ready to go - just waiting for the cover art from the artist) was my smallest commercial work of fiction ever coming in at 138 rooms.

As if to make up for this Hermitage is shaping up to surpass The First Mile as my largest novel ever; I'm at 49 rooms after this morning's round of writing and the plot is only now starting to take shape.

Don't worry - I'm keeping my promise - I'm not implementing a virtual Winter Palace with a thousand or more rooms with every intricate detail included.

My usual pace of writing large sections of code has slowed to a crawl but is picking up speed again.

Today I implemented just two rooms in The Winter Palace; but they are important ones. Researching the original design plans of the palace this morning led to the perfect solution of how much of the palace to implement and which parts. When I laid eyes on the palace back in August I briefly (five seconds briefly) considered implementing the entire palace with the 1,000+ rooms and all.

Then sense took over and told me to do this would serve no purpose; to force the reader to explore hundreds upon hundreds of areas of a story - most of which would serve no purpose - would be a disservice to my fans.

So just two little rooms today but a huge leap forward on fine-tuning my philosophy of implementing my latest addition to the suspense fiction world.

I am in the thick of things now. I am implementing The Winter Palace and am ever so grateful to have an official Hermitage map spread out in front of me. Working from memory I had concluded I needed two separate ticket window rooms which is not indicated on the map. In the interests of simplicity I'm going with a single ticket sales area despite the fact I distinctly remember the chaotic crowds pushing and shoving to gain an inch of ground on line.

Wrestling with the maps of Hermitage reminded me of a similar (and very frustrating) situation Nadia and I encountered when following the maps they provided and trying to find a particular exhibit.

Not trusting my memory to recall this revelation, I used my iPhone voice memo feature to capture that thought and a couple of other observations.

Here are some voice memos I recorded the following day as we explored more of the area surrounding The Winter Palace. I include them now because the areas described were implemented into the story this morning:

Howard standing in front of The Hermitage - Former Winter Palace of the Czars.

Our last time in Saint Petersburg was in 2003. It was purely a pleasure trip to see the best of everything in this historic city so steeped with centuries of European history. Our return to Saint Petersburg in 2009 served first and foremost to give me the opportunity to conduct primary research for my latest suspense fiction title and, as a bonus, gave me the opportunity to become grounded all over again with the inculcation of my identity -- who I am, what my responsibilities are and how far I will go to achieve my imperatives.

Join me on a tour of Saint Petersburg and follow along with me as I developed the beginning, the middle and the end of my Hermitage - an interactive work of suspense fiction.

First order of business - the sweet reunion with my wife after three long weeks apart.

The size and scope of The Hermitage forced me to worry if I'd finally gone too far...

On the left - a vast receiving room just before entering the throne room on the right.

Inspiration from Other Quarters

August 28th, 2009

Nadia and I enjoyed a boat tour of the canal system of Saint Petersburg with a nice jaunt down the Neva river.

A puzzle idea I was brewing yesterday was solidified today as I shot video and photos of a particular canal and street right alongside that runs parallel to The Hermitage. It's a major multi-part sequence that suspense fiction readers will love minute by minute.

Lunch was at The Literary Cafe at 18 Nevsky Prospekt. This was a "must see" for me because in its previous incarnation as The Wolf & Beranget Cafe, Dostoevsky and Pushkin were frequent patrons. Other giants of Russian culture such as Tchaikovsky, Shalapin and Lermontov were also regulars.

It was a day like no other with a legendary lunch to top it off.

August 27th, 2009

Meanderings

Strolling along the side streets off of Nevsky Prospekt today with Nadia under my arm the most amazing mid-game sequence occurred to me alongside one of the canals near the Hermitage.

I snapped some shots on my iPhone to preserve the scenery in my mind and took down a one minute audio memo.

I must say that near-total withdrawal from "the grid" is doing wonders for my mind on this working vacation.

What do I mean by off the grid?

Per-minute rates on my iPhone are a heady $5 per minute. To the tune of $300 per hour no one needs to talk to me that badly.

Data rates on my iPhone run $20 per megabyte. Sending off just a few of the photos I snapped today alone would cost $20. Googling a website for additional information about a particular point of interest and calling down a copy of the Hermitage source code, making some changes and resending it back to the cloud would cost another $20.

No thanks. I can wait.

I have Internet access through a temporary arrangement at the private apartment we rented in Saint Petersburg but, for various reasons, it's a totals pain to get online so I limit myself to being online less than one hour per day in total.

This involuntary withdrawal from information overload has freed up my mind to simply think and imagine and ponder. It's wondrous.

In other news we visited the Nabakov museum this morning and I received inspiration along a whole new thread; my heirs.

The movie shown at the beginning of the tour inspired me nearly as much as walking through the home of this literary giant whose achievements crossed the boundaries of language, politics, geography and ideology.

How so?

His son is able to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle well beyond the reach of Joe Sixpack. With all the time in the world and virtually unlimited flows of cash coming in, he has the hobby of keeping a collection of high-powered, high sticker price cars as an indulgence thanks to the royalties his dad's work produces year after year.

While marveling at his works and admiring the mint copies of Ada, Lolita and his other masterpieces as well as his perfectly preserved butterfly collection in the display cases I saw a whole new side of Nabakov - an intellectual giant who cheated the Soviet revolution by sidestepping it as he hopped from Oxford to Harvard to Stanford with teaching, writing, living and achieving is a testimony to what anyone can accomplish if of the mind to do so.

August 25th, 2009

Having spent the entire day at The Hermitage with Nadia, my aching legs and I have much to say on the subject.

First and foremost it's a "must see before I die" item for anyone with even a few cultural cells in their body.

Looking past its present-day role as a museum is to imagine what life was like back when the Czars held court. Exploring the throne room, the ball room and the hundreds of other rooms trying to ignore all the art and artifacts allowed me to envision what life was like for one of the richest, most powerful and equally prominent royal families in all the world.

All well and good but my meanderings with the magic of majesty of life in the Court of Czar Nicholas II has little to do with writing a modern day suspense fiction novel so I'll move right along and get to the good part.

I worked out endgame to Hermitage while strolling through a wing on the second floor exhibiting art from Italy. I went through the steps in my mind that would leap up to it, what would happen during that stage of the story and a very rough outline of what the reader will experience right at the very end.

While strolling through The Hermitage, I recorded some voice memos on my iPhone. Things too important to forget and yet impossible to write down. The most important one is my new-found appreciation for the accuracy of maps and how endlessly frustrating it must be for interactive fiction participants to explore an area of one of my novels that doesn't accurately correspond to the maps provided.

I owe Malinche's chief cartographer Al a pizza with the works and a pitcher of beer for all the years he's been putting up with my geographical anomalies. Small wonder I didn't drive the man clinically insane over the years...

Here's the score - I've got the introduction worked out. I've got some ideas for the middle and endgame is a done deal.

Now I'm off to explore more of the surrounding area of Saint Petersburg so I am equipped to introduce the elements of ambience in this capital Russian city into the story.

23 August 2009

Before I get to my first "fly by" of the Hermitage over the weekend, I'd like to first share with you my overall thoughts and feelings about spending my first day in Russia alone with my wife after three long weeks apart.

My feelings about our time apart is what inspired me to push back the previously-scheduled "Grand Damned" to make room for Hermitage in the first place.

My wife's family lives in Russia which is altogether logical as my wife is Russian by birth.

Tracing her lineage to its logical conclusion, Nadia longed to return to
"the old country" and show off her pride and joy (that would be our daughter Milana).

"A month?" I inquired forlornly. "I can't be gone for a month. Malinche would implode if I decided to take a mini-retirement halfway across the world." I calmly explained.

One thing led to another and, somehow, I agreed to return to the boredom of bastardly bachelorhood for three weeks, letting Nadia and Milana spent most of August with the family in Saint Petersburg with the plan for me to join them the last week in August.

Thankfully everything has gone according to plan.

So it's easy to see where the premise of where Hermitage comes from -- having my family taken from me and my feelings about that.

I initially planned Hermitage to be some seriously dark suspense fiction to reflect my dark mood of missing my wife and daughter something terrible.

A funny thing happened my first day in Saint Petersburg...

... I was on all-day date with my wife and we both felt as though our courtship was still going on with all the riveting raw romance and warmth of heart the memories of our first true love can conjure for us.

Good news: With our ten year anniversary around the corner, my marriage was refreshed thanks to a virtual dip in the fountain of youth. We acted like a pair of puppy-love teenagers on the streets and in the museums of Saint Petersburg. That behavior extended well into our rented flat but decorum prevents me from elaborating...

Bad news: I'm not in a dark mood any longer. Far from it, if anything.

Quandary: How do you write a dark tale of suspense fiction when you're feeling as dark as Times Square on New Year's Eve?

Solution: Imagination. Oh right. I'd nearly forgotten...

I'm going to push my imagination far beyond the boundaries of my comfort zone and invoke the feelings any spouse would feel if their loved one and their child were abruptly taken from them.

In a wide departure from all of my previous work there is one thing I will promise right now:

There is no way for the reader/player to be killed or lose.

This might give you a false sense of confidence but I hope you don't fall for that easy trap I laid; you can't lose the game and the bad guys just won't be able to kill you but you may find yourself IMMENSELY frustrated at times.

Anyone even casually familiar with my work knows that the promise I made may well be a fate worse then death.

Now, as promised, my initial impressions after my first "fly by" past the front
of The Hermitage:

"Blimey, it's bigger than I remember. How will I implement even a tenth of it with any sort of detail?"

August 21, 2009

My next adventure started before I even got to the airport.

There were a thousand little details to attend to before I left... delegation,
task assignment, the sports club, a bit of shopping, then banking then a manicure.

On international flights we're instructed to arrive three hours before departure time.

My Finnair flight to Saint Petersburg, Russia with a stop in Helsinki, Finland was set to leave today at 5:45pm.

I was in my car and heading to the airport at 2:30.

I was already cutting it too close.

Bumper to bumper traffic all the way from the exit ramp of the Verrazano Bridge straight through Brooklyn and right to the airport restricted my speed to a snailish 20 MPH with gusts up to 30.

Passing by two accidents (why the HELL is absolutely EVERYONE compelled to stop and stare? What's the deal? Who is so interested in a car accident? The macabre driver looking for a body count? Drooling insurance adjustors assessing possible auto damage like virtual voyeurs watching the hottest sex of their lives??)

The accidents now passed I speed up to a very promising 70MPH. Rolling into long term parking at JFK at a scary 4:20 PM I take one look at the long term parking rates and nearly shit myself.

$50 per day for long term parking??!! WTF?

Throwing the car into reverse just in front of those large metal teeth that threaten to rip your tires apart if you back up behind them, I careen back onto the main drag as I hit Google on my iPhone for an alternative.

A Chanukah miracle appears on the screen. JFK Long Term Parking - $12 per day. And it was right around the corner.

Parked, bused over to the terminal and making for the check-in counter at flank speed, I glance at my watch and it's now 4:40.

I made it.

It's 7:00pm as I type this up on my Acer Aspire One Netbook as we continue to taxi. Take off time could tip 9pm. Hurry up and wait indeed.

Side note - My Acer Aspire One is not my preferred choice for Implementing but my full sized Acer Aspire 5100 with Windows 7 Release Candidate had to stay behind.

Why did I opt for the netbook? I am allowed just ONE carry on bag. My laptop bag would sink that deal. So I stuffed my netbook in my carry on bag with room to spare.

But not much.

The little netbook is doing well enough. I'm still adjusting to high volume, high speed typing on the tiny keyboard and I seriously miss my mouse for copy and paste.

She'll do, though.

More on Sunday.