Lords of Kobol Ch-ch-ch-changes!

UPDATE: A lot of the info in this post is now obsolete or just plain wrong.  For the latest info and ETA on Colonies of Kobol, read this post.

In this post, I'm going to lay out the future of Lords of Kobol, as well as Colonies of Kobol, my plans for writing it all, my plans for releasing it all, and more.

First off, Lords of Kobol - Book Four - Tales from Ancient Days is dead.  It has been unpublished.  Simply put, I've found it a distraction from the narrative through-line between the trilogy and Book Five.  I never intended to write a Book Five, so having a disconnected, alternate universe Book Four wasn't really an issue six years ago when it was published.  At any rate, it's gone and sequestered to the back of Book Three as Lords of Kobol - Alternate: Tales from Ancient Days.  It's bonus footage, if you will, on the Blu-ray of Book Three.

Also, Book Five is dead.  Long live Prelude.

Since Book Five is a prequel to the trilogy, retitling it Prelude was an obvious decision, plus it mitigates the confusion caused by Book Four.

So, again, if you visit my page on Smashwords, you will no longer find Book Four and you will see that Book Five has been renamed.

Now, on to Colonies of Kobol.

If you haven't been following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc., shame.  Secondly, you may not know that I've been doing a Battlestar Galactica rewatch and reread.  I started with the original series back in the spring, followed by Galactica 1980.  Then, I tackled the BSG-verse in chronological order.  First, I read Lords of Kobol - Prelude, then Book One, Two, and Three.  Then I watched Caprica, followed by Blood & Chrome.  As of this writing, I'm at the beginning of Galactica itself's second season.  As I watch each episode, I take notes and livetweet info about the show, both what's on screen and behind-the-scenes.  I also tweet about connections to my Kobol books.  Just look for the hashtags "#BSG #TotalReWatch."

Obviously, the main purpose behind the rewatch and reread is to get my head into the universe so I can start writing again.  I'm making notes, making outlines, and - believe it or not - I've already started writing some scenes that got into my head because I was afraid they'd leave me if I didn't put cursor to screen, as it were.

Volume One will begin with the end of Earth and the fleeing of the Final Five.  It will be followed by a few other books about different colonies, primarily in the years after the flight from Kobol (beginning with the first settlements on Gemenon).  The Earth part of the book is largely outlined already and I like it.

Volume Two deals with the middle ages, sorta, of the Colonies.  Lots of growing pains as humanity rules itself for the first time in millennia without gods watching over them.  (Fans of the original series may like that logo as it's the symbol for Galactica.  Here, it's the seal of the Virgon Empire.)

Finally, Volume Three will take us up to the Fall of the Colonies, fill in some blanks that surround Caprica and Blood & Chrome, and so forth.  I don't want to spoil anything, but part of what I've already written is in the final pages of this book.

Do I have a timetable on when these will be finished?  Well, no.  If I start in earnest in early 2017, maybe it'll be done and ready to publish in 2018.  I can't be more specific than that.  (Writing the Lords of Kobol trilogy took about six or so months, but the words just flowed, man.  Writing Book Five [Prelude] took a couple of years because I fell into a creative funk for a bit.  Who knows if that'll hit me again.)

Is there anything after Colonies of Kobol?  Well, YES.

I'm calling these the "Marble Editions."  I intend to provide author's commentary on the books by means of a link at the end of each chapter that will take the reader to the back of the book, where there will be details on why I made certain choices, images from the writing process, and more.  (I will probably publish this as one, big-ass book.)

Naturally, after those "Marble Editions" will come these "Marble Editions":

Same deal: author's commentary, images, and more woven throughout via links at the end of each chapter.

OK, now here's the big deadline I've set for myself.

March, 2019.

Why then?  The final episodes of Battlestar Galactica aired in March, 2009.  I figure ten years is enough time for me to write all I'm going to write and close out the universe for good.

Stay tuned for more!

"Lords of Kobol" and "Colonies of Kobol": Big Plans Ahead

I have plans.  That's not to say they will be fulfilled as they are in my head presently, but I do have plans.

"If wishes were horses ..." something, something.  Is there a similar saying for plans?  "If plans could stand, I'd have a mansion."  There.  Just made one up.

Oh.  Right.  "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."  Yeah, OK.  Same diff.

At any rate, it's no secret that I plan to get back to the BSG/Kobol-verse in the near future.  I've teased my next series, Colonies of Kobol, for the last couple of years.  Well, now I have a plan.

If you don't mind a few minuscule spoilers, hit the JUMP and I'll fill you in.

Welcome!

First thing's first: my name is Trey and I'm a dork.

A few years ago after watching the end of Battlestar Galactica, I knew there were some things I wished had been explored further.  Though I enjoyed the end very much, I understood that the producers and writers didn't necessarily want to answer every question posed.  So ...

I decided to explore the ancient history of the show.  Since I like mythology, that era had some of my biggest questions.  I pondered it for a couple of months and then I thought I would undertake the writing of that history.  Fast forward a couple of years, I've got three books on the matter, spanning more than five thousand years ... the end of which is set some two thousand years before the show and yet inextricably tied.

First, let me say that if you haven't seen all of Battlestar Galactica, perhaps this isn't for you.  (Caprica isn't as necessary to see for these books.)  Skip down to Displaced and read that non-BSG scifi book.

Next, check out this "video" I posted which sort of sets up the books.  After you've read the books, please know that you can hang out here on the blog and check out all sorts of "bonus materials," almost like a DVD. Pictures, maps, commentary and much more.


"But wait," you're saying, "how do I know these don't suck?"  Well, I appreciate your candor.  Feel free to read this collection of reviews to assuage your concerns.

Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: introduces you to the gods at the height of their power, as well as the creation and later exodus of the Thirteenth Tribe.

For Book One, here's the post detailing the map in the book, along with a larger version.

Lords of Kobol - Book Two: Descent can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: primarily a flashback to the gods' descent from Mt. Olympus and the beginning of their reign over mankind, strife between Prometheus and Zeus, etc.

For Book Two, here's a post on the map I made for that book and here's one about asteroid impacts.

Lords of Kobol - Book Three: The Final Exodus can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: the end of the Lords' dominion, rise of Cylons, the "Blaze," Tomb of Athena and the exodus of man.

For Book Three, here are a few maps (including the City of the Gods), propaganda of the gods and details on the Book of Pythia.

Trilogy-wise (all with major spoilers), here's a post of deleted scenes, a glossary of terms and, finally, an article to address the questions of how I tied the books to the show.  Here's that huge post on the theology of the show and my books.  It includes Book Four spoilers, so beware of that.

That's the trilogy.  But wait, there's more ...

Lords of Kobol - Book Four: Tales From Ancient Days can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: this is tough.  Essentially, I wanted to explore some things I couldn't in the original trilogy.  This is a completely different version of the story and told in a Tolkien-esque fashion.  There's more mysticism, mythology and so on.

For Book Four, here's the map for this book and here's an article addressing how I tackled certain show-related questions in this volume.

*** For all of the Lords of Kobol books, here's a huge post that outlines the theology of the two TV shows and the four novels.  Please, only read that after you've read the books.  And seen the show.  It's in-depth and addresses many questions.  Very important. ***

Lords of Kobol - Book Five: Of Gods and Titans can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for FREE at Smashwords here.  Also available at iTunes, Kobo, and B&N.  All for free.

Basic synopsis: we go back to the trilogy with this prequel that details the creation of the Titans and how Zeus and his Olympians overthrew them.

For Book Five, here are the maps, designing the Caesar's seal, the look of Cylons, world-building with language, mythology, real-world theology & history, and a glossary of terms.

ALSO (and trilogy-wide stuff is discussed), there's the prequel trap, the problem with BSG, my workspace, BSG theology 1, BSG theology 2, and a finale Q&A.



BUT WAIT; THERE'S MORE.

Not only have I written these four BSG-related books (free to download, I remind you), but I'm in the process of publishing non-BSG works, too.

Displaced can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $2.99 at Smashwords here.  Also available at B&N, Kobo, iTunes, and Amazon.

Basic synopsis: Baltimore cop wakes up in his car on a farm far from home.  Lots of weirdness happens after that.  (Prehistoric animals, robots ... you get the idea.)  Sci-fi, action packed, kind of a mystery.  Think Lost but set on a farm and with a more solid ending.

For Displaced, here's a post with a map of the farm and here's one with another spoilery map and a size comparison chart for the various animals.

Diary of a Second Life can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $2.99 at Smashwords here.  Also available at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

Basic synopsis: three centuries after an apocalypse wrought by the undead (yes, zombies), a teen named Wess Marin decides he must leave his insular community in order to survive.  This book details his attempts to leave the past behind and maybe even cure the evil that has destroyed the world.

For Diary of a Second Life, here's post number one on the illustrations, post number two on the illustrations, the original outline and plan for the novel, an article explaining the science of my zombies compared to other fictional zombies and a post on the real-world geography in the book.

Sexcalation, my very adult erotica novel, can be downloaded in just about every imaginable format for $3.99 at Smashwords.  Also available at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and Barnes & Noble.

Basic synopsis: semi-autobiographical account of a guy getting laid, getting married, trying to get laid with his wife and then the couple becoming involved with the sexy couple who moves in nearby.

(Read the Sexcalation blog, the porn-laden Sexcalation Tumblr and Sexcalation Twitter, all of which are basically inactive at this point.)

The Red Kick, my superhero erotica series, can be downloaded in one compilation for $3.99 from Amazon, Smashwords, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble.

Issue #1 is FREE and can be downloaded from Smashwords.

Basic synopsis: a masked citizen works as a stripper to learn the evil plans of her city's ne'er-do-wells and then gears up to fight them.  Fun "Batman"-style "BIFF! POW! BANG!" narrative both for the fighting action and the bedroom action.



There you have it.  Please, commence the downloading and then the reading.  Feel free to let me know what you think by leaving comments below, following me on Twitter, following me on Tumblr or by 'liking' my Facebook page.

And, please, whenever you buy and download my stuff, don't forget to rate and review.

Thanks for your time.

"Lords of Kobol" Finale: Questions, Answers & Trivia

This is the end.  My only friends, the end.

As promised, I'll be answering some questions and dropping some last-minute trivia here in this last post related to the Lords of Kobol series.

There will be a few SPOILERS, so just in case, we'll dive in after the JUMP.

Book Five: BSG Theology 2 - The Song

Continuing from yesterday's post on how Book Five fits in with the Lords of Kobol trilogy and the greater universe of the show, this one deals with the last two or three chapters only.

Heavy SPOILERS.  Everything after the JUMP.

Book Five: BSG Theology

My SPOILER-heavy dissections of Lords of Kobol - Book Five: Of Gods and Titans continue ...

As the title promises, this is about The One True God, its Messengers and the greater Galactica universe.

Since it is so SPOILER-laden, we'll commence after the JUMP.

Book Five: History and Theology

(For the record, the "History and Theology" I'm referring to is "real world" stuff; not BSG universe stuff.  That'll come in a later post.)

If you've read Book Five and don't mind having the curtain pulled back a bit and the magic spoiled, read on ...

Everything's VERY SPOILERY so it'll all come after the JUMP.

Book Five: Glossary

Most of these will be items from the Tiberian Empire, since a great deal of focus was on that side of the world.

See the full list of terms and titles after the JUMP.

Book Five: Connecting to the Trilogy

Suffice it to say, there will be loads of spoilers for Books One, Two, Three and Five in this post.

If you haven't yet, download them all HERE.  (They're free.)

Because of the spoilers, I'll connect dots in the JUMP.

Time to Read "Book Five"

DOWNLOAD HERE!

Enjoy!

Writing, Again: Part XIV - Long & Strong

... and down to get the friction on.

I've worried that perhaps Book Five turned out to be longer than I anticipated.  After all, my previous Tolstoyian work was Book Three, which maxed out at 123,000 words and 260 pages in Word.  Book Five is a relative Titan (ha) at 150,000 words and 300 pages.

I'm huge!

I was worried about scaring people off with its size, but then I realized that my work is something akin to a dog whistle at this point.  The people who hear it will come.  I'm playing to my audience and they like what I've done so far.  (I'm very appreciative if not somewhat bewildered by the enthusiasm.)

As I wrote, I trimmed.  There were whole chapters cast aside that dove deeper into Larsa's history, particularly the history of the Tiberian Empire and the history of the predominant monotheistic faith.  Some of that info found its way, in tidbit form, into other chapters.

I gave serious thought last week to completely restructuring the first half so we can get to the creation of the Titans that much more quickly.  I went through it all and highlighted what had to go and what had to stay.  I determined that I'd only be able to net about four fewer pages.  Those pages included a lot of good character work, particularly for the Caesar, and some good world-building scenery.  I decided four pages just wasn't worth it.

So, you'll be getting Book Five as I intended it.  It's large, but I think you can handle it.

Writing, Again: Part XIII - Myth and "-Machy"

When it comes to writing Lords of Kobol, some of my favorite stuff comes from mythology.  I'm talking about the Greek mythology; not the show's mythology.  I love reading up on these ancient tales and then trying to figure out a way for Cylons to enter the mix.

So it's fun.  It's a good storytelling exercise.  Like making Hades the lord of the underworld.  Or punishing Prometheus for revealing forbidden knowledge to mankind.  Sometimes I like to take the mythology and turn it completely around.  Honestly, the only example of that I can think of would be Hephaestus' loving marriage to Aphrodite.  (In mythology, their marriage was rather loveless and she slept with everyone but Heph.)

With Of Gods and Titans, there were many, many more myths to explore.  This gave me a skeleton of narrative ideas and also fertile ground for creative integration solutions.

Sorry.  I seemed to have gone corporate for a second there.

Basically, there are shloads of good myths about the gods and the Titans and that gave me shloads of opportunities to make cool stuff up.

For most people, they might not notice the connections to real myths.  If you're a Greek scholar or a fan of this stuff, you might even get more enjoyment from it all.  But for the masses, there's really only one Titan story we all remember:

Francisco de Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son"

Admittedly, it's pretty damned hard to forget that Cronus (Saturn) ate his kids.  Maybe you forgot that Rhea (Cronus' wife) hid baby Zeus and tricked Cronus into eating a stone instead, which later caused him to puke up his other children.  Still, that's the part about the Titans everyone knows.

I won't spoil it, but I will say that I'm particularly proud of how I made this story fit into the Lords of Kobol universe.

But there's a lot more myths to be had.

The war between the Olympians and the Titans is called, in Greek, "Titanomachy."  "-machy" is a suffix meaning "war" or "conflict."  Again, I won't spoil anything, but there are other "machies" involving the Titans and the Olympians.  They are the "Gigantomachy" and the "Typhonomachy."  If you want, feel free to Google or Wiki those, but maybe you'd like it better if you studied up on that biz after you read Book Five.

Still, for my purposes, it's intriguing to think that most people only know the story of Cronus eating his children.  But how did Zeus overthrow the Titans?  It's in the book.

I know I said this is a post about myth, but I won't be getting into the mythology of BSG here, or the whole One True God and its Messengers thing.  I'll save that for a later post about the theology of Book Five.

Writing, Again: Part XII - Retcon Me

You've already read some parts of Book Five.  No, not from the chapters I've posted.  I'm talking about sections in the trilogy that you've already read.

You have already read them, right?

Did I just copy & paste those flashbacks into the new book?  Did I radically change things around?  Did I totally rewrite all of Zeus' back history, meaning I'll need to do another rewrite on the trilogy?

Minor spoilers and answers after the JUMP.

Writing, Again: Part XI - Finalized Maps

This will be a short one.  I thought you might like to see the final maps that appear in Book Five.

Click to embiggen

As I stated in an earlier post, since Larsa is very Tiberia-focused, the map moves them to the center.  Also, much of the world recognizes Tiberia's names for geographical points of interest (Isinnia, Eridia, Badaria, etc.) instead of the more ancient Attican names that Zeus, et al, employed in the trilogy (Galatia, Scythia, Illyria, etc.).

Like previous maps I've made, the place names come from actual geographic features I found on an ancient Latin map of the Roman Empire as well as variations of ancient cities and lands from all around the world.  In the trilogy, I stuck to ancient Greece since Zeus, etc., named everything after Attican sites.  This time around, without a unifying influence, it seemed logical to name things based on all kinds of differing backgrounds and histories.

Click to embiggen

Since much of the action takes place in Isinnia, I knew I'd need a more detailed version so I could squeeze in more names and labels.

That's all for now.  More reading and editing to do.  More blog posts coming soon, too.

Writing, Again: Part X - Prequel Problems

I've typed on this subject before, but as I'm nearer the book's release, it seemed fitting to tackle it again.

There's an inherent problem with prequels.  If characters carry over from the original to the prequel, then we already know how they turn out.  So we have to make things interesting.  We have to do stuff with them that defies (some measure of) expectations.

Trust me, I didn't go so far as this.

Zeus and crew feature prominently in Book Five, of course.  But the Zeus we see is not the same Zeus we find in the trilogy.  There is a learning curve for him.  We get hints of the god who will rule Kobol, but he doesn't fully come into his own within these pages.

The same can be said for other characters that appear in the trilogy, but I won't go into further detail for fear of ruining any potential surprises.

Another problem?  Characters you don't know about and aren't familiar with at all.  Sometimes this isn't a problem and sometimes it is.

Like this guy.  Who cared about him in the Matrix sequels?  No one.  That's who.

Typically, that's a result of poor writing.  If A) the new character isn't intriguing and B) the older, beloved characters appear to be shunted aside in favor of the new characters, then you get audience displeasure.

By necessity, there are new characters in Book Five.  The subtitle alone tells you that the Titans are involved.  Also, as depicted in a Book Three flashback, we know that there's a Caesar, too.  I found Caesar to be a compelling character and I didn't mind dedicating plenty of space to him.  I don't believe the readers will mind, either.

Despite my own enjoyment of Caesar Maxentius IX, I know people are reading this for more Zeus, et al, and Cylons.  I felt duty-bound to get to them as soon as possible, so the creation of the Titans comes fairly early on.  (And the birth of the Olympians shortly after that.)  The bulk of the book is Titans vs. Olympians.  That's the whole point, right?

I was about a month into it when I realized I was falling into the prequel trap.  I was spending too much time with new characters and, as a consequence, the characters people wanted to spend time with were being shunted further and further back.  So I began to trim.  I had to be careful, though, as I needed to build the world.

Book One spends a good bit of time building the world of Kobol in the golden age of the Lords' reign.  When I first published the book, I probably had too many chapters doing that.  In subsequent edits, I removed a few.  It's a tighter book and the world doesn't seem to have suffered.

Book Five is much the same.  The world is very different, though.  It's not a world unified and buoyed by the gods.  I spent too long building corners of the world that could have been taken care of more organically as the story progressed.  All's well now and the book is shorter for it.  (Not much shorter, though.  Frak.  I'll discuss that at a later time.)

But there's a tiger in our faces.  I need to mention it.

I liked it.  A lot.

Caprica had very large shoes to fill, coming after BSG.  Unfortunately, the show seemed to spin its wheels for the first third or so of the season.  They got lost in world building and in character building, too.  They had a hard time getting the characters to a place where the audience truly wanted to spend time with them.  It's a shame, because they began to find purchase and gain ground in the latter part of the series, which, of course, was too late.

How did Caprica fare against the prequel problem?  Well, they avoided having any characters from BSG in it (though they did have the family members of some).  The entire show was made up of new characters, some of whom clicked better than others.  They jumped into it, whole hog.  Props for the attempt.  If the early going hadn't seemed so slow and had "SyFy" treated it better, I'm sure we'd have a few seasons of a good-to-great prequel to reflect upon.

More posts coming soon ... including maps, mythology, and the problem with Galactica.

Writing, Again: Part IX - World Building with Language

In my post-writing phase, I intend to put up entries on all manner of topics related to (and maybe not) BSG, Lords of Kobol, etc.  Here's the first.

Language.  When you're writing a book, language is pretty damned important.  It casts a tone over everything.  Word choice, dialogue choice, dialogue styles, ... it makes the world you're creating feel familiar or alien.  Whichever one you need.

For Lords of Kobol, I've tried to walk the line between familiar and alien.  Since the stories take place thousands of years before BSG, I have a wide degree of latitude when it comes to the world I've made and how the characters speak.  It needs to be familiar enough so that the reader is comfortable with it, but I want to inject things that make it feel foreign.

For example, in all of the books, I've managed to avoid having any character say, "OK."  That's actually harder than you might think.  If I had to guess, I'd say that some of the characters on the show said "OK" on occasion, but not in my books.  "OK" dates to the early 1800s when there was an "abbreviation fad" (holy crap, life must've been boring then).  There also appeared to be a "misspelling fad," because "OK" came to mean "oll korrect."  Apparently, "okeh" is a Choctaw word meaning "it is" and that came to be known at about the same time, so perhaps the two origins are intertwined.  Regardless ... I felt "OK" was too colloquial and decided not to use it.

Another one?  The word "luck" doesn't appear in the books.  Characters might say "good fortune," but they'll never say "good luck."  Why?  I don't know.  It's just another way for it to feel alien.

One of the biggest traps for writers, particularly those who dabble in scifi or ancient times, is the use of idioms.  You know what an idiom is, right?  It's a phrase that doesn't mean anything logically on its face, but we understand what's being said.  For example, "fine kettle of fish."

Because this is set on another planet thousands of years ago, in Book Five, I use a variety of idiomatic substitutions.  Here are a few:

• "elephant in the room" = "tiger in our face"
• "carrot and stick" = "hook and worm"
• "icing on the cake" = "sauce on the steak"
• "heart of the matter" = "middle of the 'choke" (short for "artichoke")
• "in the lion's den" = "in the bear's cave"

See?  Even if I didn't warn you about the new idioms, you probably would have figured them out easily enough.

Another means: tone of dialogue.  Think about historical films.  Let's choose a Roman epic, since that fits with Book Five.  Everyone has a British accent because, apparently, everyone spoke with British accents back in the day.  The rich patricians and the emperor will speak with a highly educated accent.  They'll enunciate all of their words.  They won't say certain things.  This conveys high class.  The plebeians, the soldiers and other rabble will speak with a Cockney accent.  Something to convey low class.  That's the way these things work.

In Book Five, I do much the same thing.  The Caesar and his associates often speak in bigger words with a slightly more archaic tone.  The plebians in the story do not and they often employ contractions.  Zeus and his people speak like "we" do (modern Americans), with lots of contractions and an easy familiarity.  That's because this is the way they spoke in the previous books and also because we're supposed to be paying attention to them more intently anyway.  Lastly, the Messengers (BSG's angels) speak in a more "ethereal" manner.  Their word choices and tones are nearly biblical or Tolkienesque (just like all of Book Four).  This puts them at a distance from us; it makes them feel ancient, alien and out of reach.  (The narrative around the "tenders" also tends toward the Tolkieneque to aid with this feeling.)

That's all I've got for now.  Back to the reading and editing.  More posts to come in the near future.

Writing, Again: Part VIII - Setting the Scene

As I settle down for the reading/editing process, I thought maybe one or two of you might be intrigued to see where the "magic" happens (click to enlarge):

1. Map of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.  A portent of things to come.
2. Snacks.  Dark chocolate M&Ms (brain food!) and water with a squirt of lemon juice.
3. Reference books.  Classical Myth and Wheelock's Latin.
4. Nook.  Loaded with the previous four Lords of Kobol books for quick reference.
5. Notepad.  Loaded with ideas more than a couple of years old.
6. Map in progress.  Basically a blank map of Larsa; I scribble in city and country names as I write.
7. Post-Its.  The ones on the left are ideas that occur to me throughout the day and I slap them there so I can remember to incorporate them later.  The four or five on the right are lists of names, mostly.  All of the Olympians, Titans, in what order did Cronus eat Zeus' siblings ...
8. I don't know what to call these.  They're things I mess with as I type or think.  There's a pasteboard cylinder with a lid that opens and closes.  The air resistance is nice.  A pair of Lego plates that I connect and disconnect in one hand.  One of them developed a crack a few weeks ago.  On the day I finished Book Five, it finally broke.  I don't know what that means.  I used to have an old glowstick that I gnawed on like a cigar but my wife took it away from me.
9. Universal remote.  I use it to control my Blu-ray player which is always playing Bear McCreary's thirteen hours of Galactica-related music.
10. More notes.  That drawer is filled with notepads and scraps of paper on which I jotted ideas.

Ta-da.

Enough stalling.  Back to work for me.

Consummatum est

Now for weeks of re-reading and editing.

Let's just hope it doesn't suck.

Writing, Again: Part VII - Overcoming Stumpings

I'm still here.

For whatever reason, on Book Five, I find that I've written in spurts.  Mentally, I have the whole thing planned.  On the screen, I outline several chapters (I type the chapter heading, followed by a brief description of what happens).  Then I write those chapters.  This gets me from one "part" of the book to the next.  Once I've written one "part," I find myself stumped.  I'm not sure why.

The first stumping was profound and I took quite a break.  Subsequent stumpings have been far briefer.  I just came off one.  It was the wrap-up of one section of the book before a time jump and the big goings-on pre-holocaust.  After a few days of nothing, I sat down and banged out the final twenty-plus chapters (in outlines, of course) over the weekend.  Now I have the full structure of the book in front of me.  I just have to fill in the blanks.

One thing I am worried about, though, is the length.  My personal target for Book Five was 120,000 words.  That's how long Book Three is.  I figure if I can keep it under that, I'll be doing well.  I've got 87,000 words so far.  I don't think I can keep it under 120,000.  Of course, there will be editing later and maybe even some serious pruning, so who knows?

Does the length bother you?  Seriously, I want to know.  Hopefully, the book is interesting and entertaining enough so you don't notice it, but I'd like to see how many of you would be put off by having a 130K, 140K, or 150K word book to read.

Let me know in the comments.

In the meantime, here's a piece from the book I enjoyed writing.  I hope you'll enjoy reading it:

On the banks of the Tiber River, east of the city, the commanders of the artillery looked to the trees on the opposite side.  The Gargano Forest was an ancient sanctuary, but it was a tactical detriment today.

"Do it," Magister Sivius said.

Seconds later, after generals spoke into their radios, explosions rippled behind the tree line.  Flames clung to trunks and reached the leaves.  Smoke poured into the sky and the vast crackling was only overshadowed by the sounds of breaking wood.

The trees glowed and ebbed a sickly orange.  The winds were kind and kept the smoke away from the assembled army.  Flames dotted the forest and kept it alight.

Just before dawn, the first shot was fired.  A commander near a large machine gun emplacement slumped over, dead.  The men ducked and looked around. 

"In the forest!" a centurion yelled.

Sivius and his tribunes raised their telescanners and saw blackened and ashen trees, still glowing red.  Some were on fire.  In that hot forest moved Cyclops.

"Lords of Kobol - Book Five" ... the First Five Chapters

I've reached the (planned) halfway point in writing and I decided to celebrate by posting the first five chapters of Book Five: Of Gods and Titans.  Click the JUMP to read on.