Writing Colonies XXXIV: SITREP - "Aquaria" is Finished (as is Volume Two)

Handy-dandy graphic:

Wow.  Look at that.  Last year when I first started doing these SITREPs, here's what the graphic looked like:

Crazy how much writing you can get done when you lose your job, huh?

So, Aquaria is finished and it went to some crazy places.  Yes, you saw in the last post that it includes a glimpse of the Colonial holocaust but I'm here to tell you it gets far crazier than that.  I won't spoil anything, however.  

Here's a map of Aquaria, though:

Pretty simple because it's a frigid, desolate place.

Now, to remind everyone of the "Volume" structure of these books, here's this handy-dandy graphic (ignore the incorrect switched Picon/Libran positions):

With Aquaria being complete, so is Volume Two.  Huzzah.  It was a long road, getting from there to here.  Empires, violent settlements/colonizations, battles, politics, ... it could've gotten repetitious and boring, but I switched styles and genres a few times to keep things interesting.  I think I succeeded and I hope you'll agree.

For those keeping track, Book Eleven was 71 pages.  That makes this first draft of Volume Two 721 pages long.  Volume One is 429 pages; Three (plus whatever Tauron ends up being) is 853 pages.  My prediction was true.  It looks like the final version will be a 2,000 page monstrosity.  Coupled with the 1,095 pages of Lords of Kobol, I think 3,000 pages is a nice round number for a universe of tales.

Now it's on to the first book of Volume Three, Tauron.  I currently have two parts planned: the first will take place about 850 years before Galactica as the beleaguered people manage to kick the Empires off their world (temporarily) and the second will take place about eighty years before BSG (about thirty before Caprica) and follow the rise of the Ha'la'tha as the resistance against an oppressive regime propped up by Caprica.  Aquaria took three weeks to write, compared to the two weeks each for Libran and Scorpia.  How long will Tauron take?  I dunno, but I'll keep you in the loop.  

Thanks for reading.

Writing Colonies XXXIII: A Sample of "Aquaria"

I'm about a third of the way through Book Eleven right now, and I've just started the portion that may intrigue you the most.  

If you want to read part of it, click the JUMP.

Writing Colonies XXXII: "Scorpia" is finished; on to "Aquaria"

 Graphic:

Man, it's weird seeing how full that is.

Scorpia is done.  It was rather fun to write, and I won't spoil too much, but there is plenty of talk about their orbital facility as well as the creation of a certain sport.  Oh, and here's a map of Scorpia, too: 

Click to embiggen

It ended up being the same length as Libran somehow (47 pages), even though it feels like more happens in Scorpia.  Whatever.  I'm not gonna cram more story in there if it feels good where it is.  After all, Volume Two is already well over 600 pages long.

Speaking of, Book Eleven: Aquaria will finish Volume Two.  You might think this will be another "novella" of about fifty pages like Libran and Scorpia and ... you might be right.  I won't know 'til it's done, but I have something surprising in store for this one.  I'll just have to start typing and see where it goes.  (And why "Aquaria" instead of "Aquarion?"  In the story, I've made "Aquarion" the older name, used primarily by Virgon as they claimed it and started to "kobolform" it.  This project was abandoned a century or so before the start of my story and the inhabitants are keen to move away from the trappings of their one-time imperial overlords.)

Bigger picture stuff:  I finished both Libran and Scorpia in just two weeks each.  Let's pretend Aquaria takes three or four weeks and Tauron takes a full month, maybe a little more.  That could mean the writing portion of Colonies of Kobol will be complete before my self-imposed deadline of fall 2021, the tenth anniversary of the release of Lords of Kobol.  Naturally, just because I've finished writing it doesn't mean it's ready for release.  Still ... that's a mighty big hurdle, wouldn't you say?

Thanks for reading.