Character Names

A while back I asked for name submissions from readers to be incorporated into the text. I am at that point now, and went back through my emails to check for your submissions. I found two, but thought there were more. If you read this and don't see your name on the list, or would like to add one, now's your chance.

I have two names to use for mechs, with the format shown:

r3137, aka "Reviser"
abf0400, aka "Flanker"

I could use a couple more in that format, as well as one or two names for humans. Note that the letters above aren't restricted to hex A-F.

Holiday Progress

The holiday break has given me some much-appreciated breathing space to get some thoughts on paper (well, virtual paper). The rest of part four has been framed up, and I'm working through the remaining scenes. I also have quite a bit of editing to do for the existing material. Writing on the iPad is very convenient, but not conducive to good drafts. They require as much work to fix as it is to write in the first place. The complete-o-meter is being updated as I work, and here's a longitudinal look--mostly to motivate me to finish.

The Zero Wave?

It's hard for a sci-fi writer to stay ahead of real life: "Engineered Avian Flu Could Kill Half the World’s Humans."

Delays and Damned Delays

I'd hoped to wrap up Part IV this summer, but obviously that didn't happen. I did get a new university website launched, but my writing hit a wall about 1/3 of the way through. I continue to make notes and write, mostly using Evernote on my iPad. I have a few thousand words that aren't showing up on the complete-o-meter (sheer laziness there), and a lot of notes. So my apologies to anyone waiting--it will get done, I just can't rush it. I have several big work-related projects this fall that will eat up my time through the beginning of November. In the meantime, the various plot threads are marinating in their own juices.

Still slogging away

I you've not given up, you haven't seen the complete-o-meter twitch lately. It's not for lack of me wanting to get back to the actual writing (instead of accumulating it all in my head), it's just been insane with the number of projects I've become involved with. The best I can say is that half of it's done at the end of the June, and the rest with then end of July. I don't think it will take me that long to make some actual progress, but that's the schedule.

Maybe the good news about this lengthy percolation is that it's clear that the story has some nice opportunities for continuation (no pun intended).

If you haven't seen Brian Greene's new book on multiple universes, it's definitely worth a look. Also James Gleick's book on information theory. Great stuff.

Writing progress...

...was great until the end of the semester hit. I'll be on the road next week for family time and a research side trip to Bloomington, IN. The first 15k words of part 4 just fell out naturally, and I want to get back to it as soon as I can. Maybe I can write on the plane rides. The ipad is pretty good for that except for the pain of correcting everything afterwards.

Part Four Complete-o-Meter

You gotta love Google--they come up with new stuff constantly. As a result I can create a gauge that shows the number of words in the working draft of Part Four, rather than a scaled 0-100 range. The green goes to 40K, which is about what I guess it will come in at. The red starts at 50K words.

I don't think I'll manage my 800 words per day for a while--at least until I get some of these other projects out of the way. But I'll keep at it when I can, and see how it goes.

Part Three is up

Thanks to the Anonymoose who gave me a gentle shove via a comment on the last post. I worked hard this weekend (between yard work) to work through the parts I hadn't done. There are still sections I want to edit, but enough is enough. I've had the flu and been very busy at work, but it really comes down to a reluctance to ever call anything 'finished'. I know if I had another few days to work on it...

When I write, I use double angle brackets to denote the PDA dialogs like:

<< Hi! What's your version number? >>

but convert them to the Germanic-looking smaller version to publish. This time I didn't do that. Let me know which you prefer. I actually find it easier to read the bigger version, even though it looks less elegant.

Part Four is already in the works, and I will set up a complete-o-meter on it.  Part Four will be the logical end of this part of Calli's story. Once that's all done, I plan to have a professional editor go through the whole thing, after which I probably will publish it through Amazon's store for 99 cents or something. Of course I'll also post it here, so if you don't have a buck, you're still good.

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments or emailed. As a reminder, if you gave me a name to use, those won't appear until Part Four.

Editing...

...is hard work.. I hope to finish this weekend. I need one of those Time tickets, that's what I really need.

If you gave me a name to use, it will appear in Part IV, which is like act III for this sequence, and will be the natural end for this part of Calli's story.

Arranging and Editing

This installment has more sub-plots than I imagined until I started laying it all out. Below is my spreadsheet with the colors in columns denoting plots (no spoilers). The arrows show how I'm redistributing bits to improve pacing. That's all done. Now I have to really work on the editing, start to finish, and add a few glue bits here and there. I learned from the Continuation of Nova piece that it needs to sit and simmer too, after I'm done with that phase. That's when some of my best ideas arrive. This happened after I posted Nova's story, and there are some nice bits that are still on the drawing board as a result.

Part III Release

As you can tell from the complete-o-meter (prior post), the next installment is essentially finished. I am in the process of editing, and might get it done this weekend if I have peace and quiet. Soon, anyway. Part IV is already under way, and will complete this first "cycle."

Complete-o-meter

The live gauge below is linked to a google spreadsheet where I keep track of my progress. 100 percent is a nominal target of 40,000 words for part III. I try for at least 500 a day.