Club High Castle Pre-Pandemic

The year was 2004, the place, Iraq. We worked 12 hour shifts (sometimes more) 6 days a week, so midday chow was the thing to look forward to. It was the event. We’d pile into our squadron’s white pick-up trucks or bread trucks—yes, you read that correctly. Bread trucks. I don’t know if a bread truck vendor donated a bunch of them or what, but we had them, and they had been painted white to match the pick-up trucks. Hey, it was a truck that could haul stuff! Anyway, we’d pile into them. On this particular day, it was a pick-up truck. We climbed in the bed of it; flack vests, helmets, and all, and prepared for the excitement of lunch. As it went down the dusty roads, a spring-like breeze drifted over us. We couldn’t believe how nice and cool it was. We kept asking ourselves, how hot was it? It couldn't be more than 80! * Read footnote for more info! We had a thermostat in one of our buildings that recorded inside and outside temps (see above pic). Temperatures wo...

Sisters I finished the first wave of revisions! I will get through this, gosh darn it. Now it’s time to go back and look at the story as a whole. There were some things I missed in the beginning—The early chapters had everyone sporting their universe’s version of the iPhone 6. The year is 2002, and that is a big nope! They should be struggling with flip phones. I mean, back in the day, if you wanted to text an s, you had to hit that button four times! I’m hoping that my zeal for editing the early chapters over and over again when I started the project will make this a lot easier. And no, I couldn’t hold onto that editing obsession as the story progressed. It was a great idea, but I grew too impatient and just wanted to write. As I’ve stated before, when it comes to editing, I have the attention span of a gnat…even that is being too generous because there is my eternal battle with insomnia. If I didn’t get any sleep the night before, you can forget it. I have way too many insta...