Writing 'Colonies' Part XXII: SITREP - Canceron is finished ... maybe?

 

There you go.  That's the handy dandy graphic.

As I stated last time, I finished the first part of Book Six and, immediately upon hitting that last period, decided I didn't like it.  So I moved on to the planned second part of the book.  That's what I just finished.  (About seventy pages, for those keeping track.)

In the back of my head for the last few weeks, however, I've been thinking about the first part.  Is there something I can do to salvage it?  I do kinda want to tell that story in more than just a throwaway line in the second part.

I came upon a possibility last week.  I won't spoil anything now, but it involves a somewhat involved endeavor: writing a book within the universe and then inserting portions of it into the narrative of this story as a companion.  It would be like if I decided to take Adama's and Roslin's favorite book, Searider Falcon, write the whole thing, and then sprinkle chapters into Colonies of Kobol for flavor.  I mean, I probably won't write an entirely new book just to put pieces in this one, but I will be writing several chapters that require a whole different mindset and writing style than I've employed thus far.

I'm going to give it a go.  If it works, great.  The story of Canceron gets that much bigger.  If it doesn't work out, then I'll just move ahead to Book Seven: Aerilon.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XXI: Taking Canceron in a Different Direction

If you saw last update, I abandoned my initial start of Canceron just as I finished the first pass on those chapters.  (They were just too thin or slight compared to everything else.)  So I've pushed ahead with my planned second part of the book.  As of now, it will be the only part of Book Six, but I may go back to the first part and redo things if I get inspired.

Telling the stories of empires conquering worlds and such sounds exciting (and it is), but as I did chapter after chapter, I found myself ... repeating myself.  Castle intrigue and the like.  I pared back what I could of such repetition (and I likely have more to do), but I've been working to find new ways to tell the stories of these worlds.  Sometimes that means new genres.

If you'd like a taste of what I mean, you can read one of the early chapters of Canceron after the JUMP.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XX: Book Six - STARTING OVER

Well, shit.

No, my computer didn't die (again).  I still have the thirty-ish pages I started on last week.  Let me explain it by recounting that special moment from yesterday afternoon.

The first part of the book (not half; part) is about how the Virgo and Leo settlements on Cancer come together to form their own government after their respective empires abandoned them, thus forming the oldest (and what would become the largest) democracy in the Twelve Colonies.  So, I'm typing the final sentences.  Type, type, type.  Put the period on, delete the extra spaces, and finished.  I leaned back in my chair, glanced at the preceding paragraph or two, and said, "I hate it."

Somehow, as I wrote these thirty pages in the last several days, the thought didn't cross my mind.  I believed everything was going OK and according to my outline.  The characters were fine, there was a flourish of humor, some action, ... yeah, I didn't like it.

What was the problem?  It feels too slight.  Not just because the story was told in thirty pages.  The first part of Book Three: Leonis isn't much longer than that but I like that section of Leonis perfectly well.  No, there was just something missing.  It feels too thin.  It's like I didn't have anything more to say than, "Here's what happened.  Plot, plot, plot."  Sometimes my writing can downshift to that kind of beat-by-beat storytelling, but that's typically in action scenes and the like which demand it.  

Yeah.  So I will, basically, start over.

I will not attempt a rewrite at this stage.  I will, instead, skip ahead to the meatier portion of my Book Six outline which details the struggles of a mining community against the leadership of a company and their government.  Right now, I think this section alone will comprise Book Six. 

(Will I include those thirty pages in the mythical Colonies of Kobol - Special Edition?  Maybe.  We're still pretty far away from that, though.)

Thanks for reading.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XIX: SITREP - Book Five Is Done, Starting Book Six

It's a dark story, but Sagittaron's portion is complete.  They are at the mercy of the Virgan and Leonan Empires for centuries and some might say (like Tom Zarek) that it continued into the federal era post-Cylon War.  

Colonialism continues in Book Six: Canceron.  I've decided to tackle it in a different way and (perhaps) somewhat lightheartedly.  That's the first half, at any rate.  The second half will look at the consequences of the planet's choices from the first half.   As for the "worldbuilding" element, I've taken a cue from the QMX map which reveals that one of the major cities is named "Mangala."  Among its uses on Earth, Mangala is Hindu for the planet Mars.  Mars you say?  A great entry point for people who followed the Lords of Kobol. 

Writing continues ...

Writing 'Colonies' Part XVIII: Why I'm Writing So Much and Donations

I just typed "END OF BOOK FIVE" as I wrapped up Sagittaron. It's not terribly long (about 100 pages), but it is now part of some 600 pages I've written in the last seven months.  (Both Virgon and Sagittaron took only one month each.)

I mean ... that's a lot.  The entire Lords of Kobol trilogy (not including Prelude) is about 670 pages and that took me two whole years.  So what's going on?  Why am I cranking out pages so quickly?

Let's just say I have a lot of free time on my hands.  (Code for "I lost my job.")

It happened in mid-February, and then my job hunt was curtailed by a certain global pandemic you may have heard about.  I'm sure you can Google it or something.  Regardless, the job hunt is (still) underway, but I'm also still writing.

In a sick, potentially ironic kind of way, I had wanted to somehow carve out more time in the day so I could write Colonies of Kobol, knowing that I had said I wanted to release it in 2021, but also knowing that it still required a lot of work.  Yeah ...

Time enough at last.

Now, that brings me to something else.  

Years ago when I first published Lords of Kobol, people marveled at the price.  They are free, after all.  "Why are they free?"  Short answer: I don't wanna get sued.  In response, some people asked, "Can I send you some money?" and I said, "Nah.  Just buy my other books when they come out."

Well, by all means, that option remains: ETY3RD.com

Scifi, horror, thriller, sexy stuff, etc.

Please, buy something and read it.  If you like it, rate & review it where you got it.  That's a big help.

Given my current status and the unlikelihood that Colonies of Kobol is going to pay the bills (I still don't wanna get sued), I've had a change of heart on the "direct donation" route.  After all, it'd be nice to contribute to the household and not just be a drain.

So, you'll note the "Tipjar" with the pic of cubits at the top right of the blog page.  (I also have links on my Twitter and Facebook profiles.)  Clicking on that pic takes you to PayPal.me/ety3rd.  It's a quick and easy way to throw me a monetary bone, if you so desire.  (And if you do, drop me a line at ety3rd@ety3rd.com so I know.)

That's it.  I'm not going to beg or anything; I just wanted to put it out there and make sure people knew.

I'm currently outlining Book Six: Canceron so there will be a SITREP post coming in a few days.

Thanks for reading.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XVII: SITREP - and a chapter from Sagittaron

 Here's the graphic:

Halfway through Book Five: Sagittaron.  The first half dealt with the arrival of the imperial forces of Virgo and Leo on the planet.  The second half picks up a few centuries later once the oppression has been codified and the people are becoming set in their ways (ways that persist all the way until Battlestar Galactica).

Throughout these books, I'm using the Messengers of The One True God as connective tissue, interviewing people from my books and the TV shows to set up, recap, ask questions, etc.  I try to use characters attached to the colony in question, of course.  There are two known characters related to Sagittaron: Anastasia Dualla and Tom Zarek.  I've used them both.  In fact, you can read Zarek's chapter after the JUMP.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XVI: Mapping Leonis, Virgon, Sagittaron

 I've been making maps but I somehow forgot to share them with everyone.

Let's go back to Book Three: Leonis:

Click to embiggen

Book Three contains two time periods.  The first part is set about 620 years after the exodus from Kobol.  The initial settlers of Leonis regressed into an agrarian society and their language became something akin to Gaulish.  (Many of the smaller towns on the map come from an ancient map I found of Gaul.)  The second half of the book is set 150 years later and the language has evolved into "Old French" (aka Anglo-Norman).  

As for the structure of the world, the book Beyond Caprica states that Leonis has only two continents: one above the equator and the other below.  It also mentions that there are several large north-south rivers and that the capital (at the time of the fall of the Colonies) is Luminere, which is obviously the name of the city Lomere several centuries later.

On to Book Four: Virgon:

Click to embiggen

Book Four is focused on only one time period.  A time of transition for the Virgan Empire and a time of civil war.  Thus, the "red cities."  In the ensuing centuries, "Buskirk" became "Boskirk"; "Bloustaff" became "Bloustad"; and so on.  The time period means the language is based on Old English.  (In case you're wondering, "Cent" is pronounced with a "k" sound.)

The general look of the map came from the QMX map.  I enlarged the planet for Virgo from it and traced the outline.  It suited my purposes well.  (I couldn't do the same for Leonis; the QMX map's planet for Leonis differed too much from other descriptions of the planet.)

On to Book Five: Sagittaron:

Click to embiggen

That's a lot of mountains.

As described by multiple sources, Sagittaron is a very mountainous planet with fertile valleys.  Of course, from the show, we know that this particular world was exploited for centuries by the other colonies.  This evokes comparisons to our own planet, including the colonial period of the 18th and 19th centuries in Africa.

There are any number of languages in Africa that I might have used for this part of the series.  I ended up settling on Hausa, a language native to western Africa (in and around Nigeria).  They have (naturally) a very rich history and mythology which made for a great contrast against the Pantheonic "colonizers."  

Why did I choose Hausa, though, out of all the languages present in Africa?  The name of the capital city has been established as Tawa, so I searched to discover its origin.  As it turns out, there are several occasions of "Tawa" in various languages.  The one that intrigued me most, however, was Hausa.  In that tongue, "Tawa" means "mine," as in the possessive pronoun.  My initial confusion at seeing the word "mine" inspired this scene between the Virgan expedition leader and the chief of a village:

Cenric said, "There is no need to change what has worked well before.  Makau, introduce us."

The translator sighed and stepped toward the older man who wore brightly colored skins and a metallic necklace.  "This is the Duke of Sagittarius, Lord Cenric.  He has come to claim your lands in the name of the ruler of Virgo, Queen Beverley."

The chief raised up and angry chattering rustled through the crowd.  "He cannot do this," he said in their language.

The duke ignored him and said to Makau, "Ask him what this place is."

The young man asked, "What is this place?"

Defiant, the chief squared his shoulders and raised his jaw.  "Tawa."

"'Tawa?'" the lord asked.  "Does that have a meaning?"

Makau translated, "'Mine.'"

"Oh, a mine," Cenric said.  He looked around and smiled.  "Very attractive.  I believe we shall establish ourselves here.  Permanently."

Of course the colonizers would want to be near a mine, even though the chief was being defensive and saying his village is "mine."

Most of the green village names on the map feature only in the first half (which I have nearly finished).  The "resettlement cities" don't come into play until the second half, which is set a few centuries later.  

Book Five is a tragedy and, in these volumes, it serves to explain how the Sagittarons became the people we saw in BSG and also as an illustration as to how little mankind has changed.

Thanks for reading.