Part Four is downloadable from the site

If' you're looking for a soundtrack, the music I most listened to while writing it is the soundtrack from The Fountain.

I will post tomorrow on what's next.

The draft of Part Four is finished.

This is the largest of the installments so far. The version I have is in pretty good shape, mainly because I didn't write much of it on the iPad (and have to go back and fix lots of typos). An ever bigger factor is that I was able to rapidly write the last two thirds of it, so it already flows nicely. I've noticed a funny thing about motivation. During the writing of the previous part, I set myself a goal of 800 words a day. And if you look at the log, it's very close to 800 words a day. This time, I just wrote because it was fun to write. As a result, I wrote much more each day. My best day was 4500 words, I think. On Wednesday of this week I couldn't sleep because of the damned plot line spooking around in my head, and the characters chattering back and forth, so I just got up and wrote until 3:30am. The moral is that intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic motivation. I'd read about that idea here, and it was interesting to experience it first hand.

I want to get the editing done soon so I can post it. I hope it will be up within a week. Thanks for hanging on!

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.