“Yer right,” Flavius said suddenly, pushing his plate and drink away. “Yer Imperial Majesty is absolutely right.”
Emperor Camargo barely concealed his surprise, then narrowed his eyes at Flavius. “About what, friend Flavius? Some of my predecessors have argued for infallibility in every Imperial thought, word and deed, so specific examples would help my studied evaluation of such claims.”
“Why, the bit about the leaving, of course,” Flavius said. “Yer Imperial hospitality’s been grand, but yer right that I dinnae belong here. Even yer food, fine stuff that it is, no doubt, is too much for my simple tastes. So, aye, I’m leaving.”
“And when do you plan to depart?”
“Immediately, if nae sooner.” Flavius stood, wobbled a moment, then bowed politely. His head swam more than he’d expected. “May we meet again in better times. And by better times, I mean with fewer bodies trying to put me in an early grave.”
This proved to be quite the difficult installment to write. I'm certain other writers out there will understand when I say it's a sequence which contains relatively little action, yet is essential in terms of moving the story forward. It's not a sequence that wrote itself, suffice to say. The whole Imperial dinner was and awkward animal to tackle, seeing how it needed to be treated lightly but at the same time avoiding a descent into farce. I don't know if I succeeded. I do know that there've probably been more rewrites these last few chapters than I've had to do before. It's a delicate balancing act, I suppose. The fact that my free time's been dramatically eroded by art and photography assignments merely ups the challenge.
And I still don't know what's coming next. Oh, I know something that's coming up soon, but that's probably a month away still. What happens next week is still anyone's guess.
Now Playing: Billy Joel Songs in the Attic
Lovely commentary on the process of writing-those sequences with little action can be tough to write- and you should go and have a cookie!
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