OP-GHO: Operation Ghost Archives

The Blue Honor Vlog #60

March 19, 2021 By Captain Maiel

Welcome back for another installment of The Blue Honor Vlog. Subscribe to my channel on YouTube. As a subscriber, you’ll get episodes of Shagbottom Theater, updates from the blog, and watch the process of making book trailers. And! You’ll be first in line to see it all. Once a video is ready, it’s uploaded, and you don’t have to wait for it to come out on the blog or even in the newsletter. Let’s get started!

I’ve been talking a lot, for months, about OP-GHO. You’re probably wondering, after teasing this back in 2014, where the heck the story has been all this time. As you know, my life doesn’t always take a direct trajectory toward publishing.

OP-GHO has been in the works for years because I was closing out graduate school. Then, I was producing and promoting Trailokya. While I focused on the trilogy, I had a daughter. I wrote the story. Yes, it’s written. But, although it is written, I feel it has to sit for a bit and then be revisited with fresh eyes. Now that Lucent is no longer in production, I can focus on redrafting OP-GHO as necessary and then hiring an editor.

Finding an editor isn’t as easy as it sounds. You have to get the right fit! For a historical work, it’s important to find someone who knows the subject matter. This helps them find language that doesn’t fit the period, and keeps you on track.

Would you like to hear some of it? Being my most popular novel, I can imagine people are excited to finally get a peek!

Other Episodes From 2021:

Blue Honor Vlog Archive

(Scroll below each December video for the links to the episodes for the year).

Prior to January 2018
2018 Episodes
2019 Episodes
2020 Episodes

The Blue Honor Vlog #54

September 18, 2020 By Captain Maiel

The Sacramento International Film Festival – American Screenwriting Conference

In March, I got the great news that my adaptation of OP-DEC was an official selection for the Sacramento International Film Festival – American Screenwriting Conference. This is the first competition the script entered, following its creation as the final project in my master’s studies. I am still quite excited about it. The pandemic threatened this moment by shutting down every event that brought people together. In the subsequent months, SIFF and many other festivals decided to go virtual. This also saved my second good news of the year:

Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival

I can’t express how excited I am to experience this in a blog, but I can read you an excerpt from OP-DEC! Enjoy the collection of art I created to promote the book as I read a chilling excerpt from this best selling story.

Trigger Warning: Themes of domestic violence and family based abused are ahead. War time is difficult for the most vulnerable among our society, as it is in the times of a pandemic. To learn more about domestic abuse/violence, go here, when it’s safe to do so: Rainn.org.

Other Episodes From 2020:

Blue Honor Vlog Archive

(Scroll below the december video for the links to the episodes for the year).

Prior to January 2018
Episodes from 2018
Episodes from 2019

Have You Met the Incredible Mr. Fox – Open Book Blog Hop #202

December 9, 2019 By Captain Maiel

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #202
It’s been awhile since we’ve done this. Interview one
of your characters. Introduce them to a new audience
or give existing readers new insight into their motivations.

Welcome back to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

Let’s switch gears this time and take our interview chair to the Earth’s past, almost 80 years back…

The setting is New York City, the year, 1942 sometime in June. The blackout is in effect at night. The harbors are under surveillance. Massive military flights go over head in the daytime. Everywhere one looks, there are pleas to buy War Bonds and signs to serve the United States overseas in the war against fascism. Band music is hot and so are liberty rolls, platforms and shoulder pads. Red lipstick is common, but nylons rare. Food is rationed, but smiles are plenty because the homefront is fully on board with smashing Nazis. Our closest ally, mother Britain, has a consulate in the city. That’s where the heroine of OP-DEC: Operation Deceit rediscovered the man she fell in love with, and the relief of knowing he wasn’t a German operative allowed her to open her arms to him fully.

Let’s take a visit to the consulate and sit with this man to hear about his amazing escape from the heart of Nazi Germany and back to the woman he loves. Under cover you may have heard of him as Carsten Reinger, but the events following his mission revealed him to be Elliott Fox of British Intelligence. Due to the fall out of his work, he’s been retired to the consulate to deal with sensitive matters between London and New York.

♥

Mr. Fox sits behind a broad desk of fine walnut. Files and papers line the work surface. He adjusts his wireframes and puts his cigarette on a heavy ashtray. The smoke rises like a white ribbon snake, disappearing into the air after cavorting in a slow rhythm. Those ice blue eyes of his meet with mine and he offers his usual smile.

Fox: My apologies. Shall we begin then? What paper did you say you work for?

Interviewer: I’m not a journalist, Mr. Fox. I’m a biographer. I’m here to ask you some questions and hopefully write this amazing story of yours down. That was some adventure you had.

Fox: (taking up his cigarette) I suppose I can oblige something. The matter is still classified.

I watch him puff on the cigarette staring through me. I’m tense now and lick my lips, afraid to ask the first question.

Fox: How old are you anyway?

Interviewer: As if that is important, Mr. Fox. Shall we begin.

He grins, having successfully taken the edge back off the conversation by offending me. He meant to do that. I must be an easy read.

Interviewer: What credentials drew the clandestine services to hiring you?

Fox: My obvious appearance and knowledge of the German language and culture.

Interviewer: You come from Falmouth, yes? In England?

Fox: Indeed, I do.

Interviewer: Do you plan to return there after the war, Mr. Fox? And, will you bring Miss Healey with you?

Fox: What does a biographer need to know about my future plans? Isn’t it the past you write about? Yes?

Interviewer: Inquiring minds, Mr. Fox. Our readers will want to know if you’re going to do right by the lady. I’ll give you time to answer. How about we move on?

Fox: That would be just fine. (he says it with such a tone, I’m forced to clear my throat and return to my old tack.)

Interviewer: Is anyone left from the original mission outside of those residing here in New York?

Fox: I am not at liberty to reveal that information and I cannot be certain of the whereabouts of agents in the field, nor their current health.

Interviewer: Fair. (I eye him a moment, getting into my groove as a researcher, feeling far less intimidated than when we started.) When you were in Boston working on Carroll Healey, did you ever fear for your life from American intelligence? Had anyone gotten wind of your operation? Or were the branches notified ahead of time?

Fox brightens at the audacity of my question. Although the information pertains to a past operation, it could shed some light on how things are done in current missions, and that is just going too far. He puffs his cigarette and doesn’t answer. He can’t, and I know it.

Interviewer: What did you feel when you first saw her? And, where were you?

Fox: Claire, you mean? (I nod.) It was at her father’s dinner party when I first met her. I had seen her photograph in his office prior to that and, of course, in the file on them. I am no school boy, madam. I didn’t fall over myself blushing. Her arrival created far more problems for me at the time instead of any pleasant distraction.

Interviewer: But you did fall in love with her?

Fox: I have. Yes. How could someone not fall for her?

Interviewer: I’ve had a few say that her privilege and indulgence in frivolous things, like lipstick, annoys the hell out of them.

Fox: Frivolity is what makes up the details in all of us. Aren’t all the women concerned about their hair and lipstick these days? Claire is a woman of her time.

Interviewer: What makes her stand out from the pack of legs for you then?

Fox sits back and smirks. He snaps his glasses off his face and laughs.

Fox: My answer would get me killed by the best agent the Americans have.

Interviewer: Miss Healey?

Fox puts out the butt of his cigarette and folds his hands on the desk, spinning the glasses. He’s reading me again.

Interviewer: What draws a man of danger, such as yourself, to a woman of comfort like Healey?

Fox: It was never my intention to be drawn by any woman during that mission, regardless of how attractive they were. Claire Healey is what you Americans phrase as a Dish. I could watch her knit and never lose interest. She’s the detail you miss and die by.

Interviewer: Readers are going to want to know what she’s got that they don’t, Mr. Fox.

Fox: She’s got brass ones and stood up to Hitler himself. I wonder, would they?

Interviewer: I suppose they wouldn’t, Mr. Fox. Tell me about that. What was it like serving the Reich, even as a spy for our side?

Fox: Like holding a gun to your head while you ride over a rocky road.

Interviewer: What would you have done had they executed your new friend?

Fox: Continued the mission. Its success would have meant even more to me.

Interviewer: What is it like to have been a field operative and then be saddled with a desk job after quite an intense mission like you had?

Fox: Respite. If you think for one moment that what we do in the field is a pleasant day picnicking, you’d be fooling yourself. It’s bloody deadly, madam. You get hurt. People die. You probably die, too. I got lucky. I get a vacation until they call me up again.

Interviewer: Would you go?

Fox: I’d have to. I signed the papers.

Interviewer: But, your mission and a lot of what happened was lined out in the rags, Mr. Fox. Surely that would be too dangerous.

Fox shrugs. The glint in his eyes shows he loves it as much as he loves that Healey girl. I feel sorry for her, sure she’s going to lose him, because he can’t keep his damn mitts out of the fire.

Interviewer: What scares you most?

Fox: Failure—because it means I’m dead.

I stare back at him a long moment. The phone rings and the interview is cut short. He mumbles something on the line, and then covers the receiver to ask me to set up another appointment with the girl out front. I know I’m not going to get back in here, but I think I have some stuff to flesh out my book about that mission of his. I gotta write it, you know. Like he’s gotta be a shadow gathering up all those juicy secrets, on the edge of a knife. I’m excited, but miffed a bit at not finding out the gossip on their relationship. He never did answer that question.

♦

Mr. Fox is a super intense guy. I can see why Claire is in love with him. His golden good looks aren’t the only thing to speed up the heart rate.

Check out the interviews on the other author blogs by clicking on the links below. I bet you’ll find something fun to read. If you liked Mr. Fox, you’ll be happy to know his sequel is in the works. OP-GHO: Operation Ghost.

Relevancy of OP-DEC

August 30, 2019 By Captain Maiel

There be spoilers ahead!

Someone recently asked me, what topics in your books are relevant to today’s issues? As you know, I write historical fiction and dark fantasy. So it may seem that I am either looking back or looking high. But to write, you have to be in the here and now. Nothing makes better writing than up to date knowledge and experiences, with the grace of history.

Writing is very much about the human condition, wrapped up in interesting tales that make it easily swallowed by the reader. The lessons contained in any book can be the sour grapes that turn them away. So you want to avoid beating people over the head with what you’re trying to say about certain human experience and histories.

Clearly, OP-DEC is about World War II and Nazis. This topic has been covered by all kinds of media, including the video for Duran Duran’s New Moon on Monday. Keeping it fresh can be quite a challenge. Readers may be drawn to the familiar subject, but engaging them further means exploring some of the lesser covered, or ignored topics.

When I wrote OP-DEC, I was not thinking of how it would coincide with current events. In 2012, it spoke more to the historical struggles of women in a man’s world: Claire, Aunt Noreen, and Claire’s mother. These are struggles still experienced today by women, to a less obvious extent that has led to complacency of all concerned. However, five years on, we see the #MeToo movement and the rise in discussions of abuse, including domestic violence, and assault.

But what no one probably recognizes is the parallel to the wealthy utilizing foreign aggressors to leverage their power over others. Carroll Healey is an engineering magnate. He approaches the German government prior to American involvement in the war, 1930s, and begins a partnership that ushers in a nefarious scheme.

Carroll doesn’t seek the presidency at this point, but he seeks greater wealth and power from a foreign government that threatens democracy and peace around the world. He supports their fascism, because fascism supports his business. Carroll is kind of smart, if you think about it. He’s hedging his business bets, believing that the United States, which was not interested in fighting a war, would not prevail against the Blitzkrieg to come. He has foresight. Carroll is also very foolish. He’s not concerned by the things he’s done to maintain his power and control, or that it could be upended by a few with justice and fairness in mind. Abiding the law is for the little people, in his opinion.

Although Carroll only has his daughter, and no minions outside of Germany assisting him in his bid, he’s very much like the current American government. He’s dangerous, sociopathic, and focused on the entitlements that he perceives for himself. Working with a foreign power to obtain those goals isn’t a betrayal, because there is no one to betray but himself. What comes first is not country but self. This is capitalism twisted by opprobrious ideology.

Much like the current administration, Carroll is susceptible to delusion and fits of anger. He reacts with the self-poison of paranoia, which you see working as a weakening force. If Twitter existed in his time, he would have had spats, called things fake news, and declared everyone crazy who opposed him. He delights even, in leveraging his daughter as a sexual prize to those he wants to control.

Uncannily similar, the government in Germany regards Carroll as a resource that is easily disposed of and worthy of mockery. You may picture Putin grinning derisively about him. The only reason to engage him is to leverage him as a tool to control his nation. Carroll’s business holds national and federal contracts. He has access to information and people. Carroll himself is not especially worth much.

I’m not prescient, per se. The truth is that history is riddled with men like this. They existed during World War II as they do now. It just happened that I wrote one a few years prior to the most recent coming to power in the White House. But, isn’t that compelling?

Get OP-DEC: Operation Deceit.

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The Blue Honor Vlog #38

May 17, 2019 By Captain Maiel

In this episode, I answer a reader question:

“Will you consider writing a sequel to OP-DEC. Or use the characters in the book to perhaps be caught in something else? I know this is an old story, but I loved the history in it and the characters. Maybe a short story if you felt the research would be long and time consuming. ” – Ruth