Writing 'Colonies' Part XV: Sitrep - Book Four is Finished (and I'm halfway done)

Here's the graphic:

SOMEHOW, I managed to write all of Book Four: Virgon in less than one month.  It's about 100 pages ... that's a lot for such a short time.  I wondered if Virgon was "too short" at that length, but the story it tells is tight, fast-paced, and exciting (I thought, anyway).  Plus, as most of Volume Two deals with the Imperial era of the Colonies (both Leo and Virgo), there would be plenty more Virgon to come.

AND, if you'll note on the handy-dandy chart, this means that eight out of the sixteen books in Colonies of Kobol are now finished.  Wow.  Halfway ... I didn't believe I'd get here so quickly.  (Note, however, that this halfway mark is somewhat arbitrary.  As far as actual pages go, I have no real idea of where or when the halfway mark would fall.  At least I won't until I've actually finished the thing.)

So now I have outlined and am ready to move on to the most exploited of the Twelve Colonies, Sagittaron:

The story it tells is necessary but probably not fun.

Thanks for reading.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XIV: Page Count

Quantity is by no means a measure of quality.  There are plenty of fans of various franchises who would agree to that.

For me, I'm trying to lay down some serious quantity and I am constantly worried that the quality may not be up to people's expectations.  Other than writing, reading, editing, writing again, etc., there's not much I can do on that front.  (And, I suppose, I could tell people, "Hey, lower your expectations.  We'll all be happier."  There.)

If you're curious about the quantity of what I've put out versus what's coming, here you go.

Lords of Kobol - Book One: Apotheosis: 206 pages
Lords of Kobol - Book Two: Descent: 203 pages
Lords of Kobol - Book Three: The Final Exodus: 260 pages
Lords of Kobol - Prelude: Of Gods and Titans: 310 pages
Lords of Kobol - Alternate: Tales from Ancient Days: 116 pages

Total for the Lords of Kobol series: 1,095 pages

Now, here's what's coming using current first draft(-ish) page counts:

Colonies of Kobol - Book One: Earth: 157 pages
Colonies of Kobol - Book Two: Gemenon: 134 pages
Colonies of Kobol - Book Three: Leonis: 138 pages

Total for Colonies of Kobol - Volume One: 429 pages

Colonies of Kobol - Book Four: Virgon: 5 pages

(Gimme a break.  I just started.)

Colonies of Kobol - Book Thirteen: Caprica: 544 pages
Colonies of Kobol - Book Fourteen: The Colony: 147 pages
Colonies of Kobol - Book Fifteen: New Caprica: 61 pages
Colonies of Kobol - Book Sixteen: Earth: 101 pages

Total for Colonies of Kobol - Volume Three: 853 pages (plus whatever Book Twelve: Tauron will be)

Total for the Colonies of Kobol series thus far: 1,287 pages

There you go.  Time for me to get back at it.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XIII: SITREP - Book Three (and Volume One) Are Finished

See for yourself:

Leonis ended up being an enjoyable exercise in writing and plotting.  How to set up a thousand-year war between two worlds ... I planted some seeds that don't begin to sprout until Book Four (which I've already outlined, as you can see).

With the completion of Book Three: Leonis, Volume One is also finished.  I made a graphic to show you how I (currently) plan to separate the books into volumes:

Yes, Volume One is "only" three books.  As that volume is subtitled Foundation, these three books had to set up all that follows.  In Book One: Earth, we set up the Final Five and their flight to the Colonies.  In Book Two: Gemenon, it's the conflict between monotheism and polytheism there that later becomes part of the Cylons' programming.  In Book Three: Leonis, it's setting the stage for the conflict between Leo and Virgo, one that shapes everything that happens in the Colonies for a millennium.

Volume Two: Evolution is just that.  How these different worlds evolve and how they are shaped by their masters who live on far away planets.  I get cracking on that in short order, starting with Book Four: Virgon.

Thanks for reading.

Writing 'Colonies' Part XII: SITREP - Half done with Book Three

Here's the handy-dandy graphic:

The first half of Book Three - Leonis went fairly quickly, I thought.  It's about the coming of Virgo to Leonis, their sister world in the Beta System, and the establishment of a unifying presence there.  I don't want to say too much, but suffice it to say that the people who led Virgo after its colonization were far better about passing along technology and knowledge than just about any other world in the colonies.  The second half continues this story a century later as Leo is more fully a vassal of Virgo and how the world breaks free of that rule, leading to a thousand years of conflict.

As Leonis has always been an analogue for France and Virgon England, I'm trying to keep a linguistic symmetry, so most of the places and names on Leo at the time of Virgo's arrival are Gaulish, minus as much Latin influence as I can muster.  The Virgo speak Latin but that is on its way out as Old English is on the rise back home.  In later books, I will transition names and words to Old English, Old French, Middle English, etc., over the centuries.  This is by no means important; it's just flavor.

Want a taste?  Here are a couple of chapters from the first half of Book Three after the JUMP.

Writing "Colonies" - Part XI: SITREP - Book Two is Finished

Here's where I stand:

Yay.

Six down, ten more to go.

Oof.  That's fatalistic.  Let me go another way.

Book Two was very fun to write.  The first half is revisiting the aftermath of the exodus from Kobol with a couple of familiar characters and getting the stage set for the next two thousand years of strife in the Colonies.  The second half takes place about a thousand years later and features the source of a lot of the conflict on Gemenon between monotheists and polytheists.  Fun to write.  I hope it's fun to read.

Next up, Book Three:

Time to French it up.

Writing "Colonies" Part X: Mapping Gemenon

If you've been reading my stuff for a while, you know I love mapping things.

I haven't made maps for every book in the Colonies series thus far, but when I begin to have to deal with multiple locations and making references in dialogue, it seems like the right thing to do.

Without further ado, here's the map I've crafted for Book Two: Gemenon:

Click to embiggen

There's a lot to say about this, but I don't want to.  I don't want to spoil the story too much.

Here are some basics, though.

Gemenon was initially named Pollux by the exiles from Kobol, because it was in a mutual orbit with Caprica (then called Castor).  The people of Virgo (you'll discover) became powers across the four systems and they called the planet Gemini.  Circa 800 years after colonization, the Virgo came to Gemenon and brought with them gold, some technology, and their languages: a high language (Latin) and a common tongue (Old English).  Over the years, the Latin evolved and became "Proto Gemenese," which is actually known as Macedo-Romanian or Aromanian on Earth (This is the real linguistic history of Romanian, by the way.  It evolved from Vulgar Latin to Aromanian to Romanian.  What was referred to as "Old Gemenese" on BSG and Caprica is, in fact, Romanian.).  Thanks to this influence, the name for their own planet at around YR 1150 is "Dzeamin" (almost pronounced like the "G" in "Gemini"), which is Aromanian for "twin."

The second half of the book takes place at about 1150 at an important time of religious strife.  The cities along the Gramada Mountains in the west are all monotheist strongholds.  There, they speak a kind of "Neo Olympian," evolved from the tongue spoken on Old Kobol.  The "Retreat" you see near Moreni is the fortress that was largely in ruins by the time of Caprica, and home to the Monad Church and the STO.  (It's what's on the cover of Book Two.)

The other cities are polytheist and had direct contact with the Virgo.  Their names are Romanian/Aromanian/Macedonian/etc.  Some of the titles they use may be derived from Latin or Old English.  For example, a cavalry unit from Calafatis is called a "horsefyrd," after the Old English terms for armies and navies ("landfyrd" and "shipfyrd").  The key conflicts in the second half of the book arise because, for a couple of centuries, both Virgo and Leo waged a kind of economic war with each other through Gemenon, which led to massive deforestation.  The trees of the Great Forest were larger than any others in the colonies and their wood more hardy.  This made them a desirable commodity and helped fund the rise of many cities near the forest.  But the rapid loss of the trees and the lack of care given to the empty space so near the windswept plains of the north has led to desertification.  The desert now creeps closer to these cities and withers their resources.  By the time of BSG, the forest will be completely gone and the desert dominates the continent.

I explained quite a bit more than I intended.  Oh well.

A couple of other tidbits?  Gallia on the map is a town named after the Galleon, the largest ship of the "caravan of the heavens" that fled Kobol, and marks the place where the exiles landed.  Oranu becomes the capital of the planet later on.  Illumini is kind of the planet's religious center, too, in later years as it contains the Pantheon and the Kobol Colleges.

I'm having fun writing about pseudo-medieval times and I'm trucking along.

Thanks for reading.

Writing "Colonies" Part IX: SITREP - Book Two, Half Finished

Just to fill everyone in, Book Two is proceeding apace.  The first half of the book is about the exiles from Kobol (as seen at the end of Lords of Kobol - Book Three) landing on Gemenon (initially called Pollux) and what happens next.  Obviously, they can't all stay there.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be Colonies (plural) of Kobol, now would it?  So, the first half sets up the spread of mankind into the other worlds and it also includes some stuff surrounding our old monotheist friends, the Draco.  (Lords of Kobol - Book Two, in case you've forgotten.)

The second half fast-forwards about eight centuries to a time of strife on Gemenon between monotheists and polytheists.  This conflict will have ramifications for centuries more, all the way up to the time of the TV show Caprica, the Cylon War, and Battlestar Galactica.

I have no idea how long it will take.  I had portions of the first half in my mind for years, but that's not the case with the second half.  It's been outlined and, as long as I can keep going for long walks where I hash out my dialogue and story points (I'm sure the neighbors think I'm nuts), I can get it done in a timely manner.

(I've also made a rudimentary map of Gemenon that I've been using.  I might post that sometime soon.)

Take care.