I've reached that point in the story where I often feel that there are going to be no more changes being made to characters and plot lines. I think a lot of this is wishful thinking. 42,000 is a lot to double check for consistency. It feels like a lot.
I've recently made changes to five characters. Not big changes, but big enough to create work for my self. This in turn has had some impact on the plot. No major changes, but plot points have shifted and redressed themselves.
Despite the man hours this equates to, I am happy to be doing the work. Many elements feel more cohesive now, and it has allowed me to restore ideas from the very beginning of the process to their initially imagined habitat.
This process has ad the effect of finally and definitely bumping back my expected date of completion until sometime in 2011. My hopes of getting at least a completed draft by Christmas have stood strong after being dashed repeatedly against the rocks of a full time job and social commitments, only to be finally felled by fourth quarter imaginings.
I honestly feel like this book is writing itself. I don't make decisions about the story, so much as I become aware of it.
I’ve been proof reading the current draft of my book. It’s a strange realisation that you will have to read your own book multiple times before you actually finish it. The kind of thing that you don’t really think about until you are actually doing it. You don’t notice so much with short stories. You knock about a few thousand words, proof it a couple of times, then if you are anything like me, abandon it somewhere on an unused computer.
The red pen activities have been difficult. I’ve been distracted by headaches and dehydration from a sinus infection. Coming into December time seems to be escaping at every turn. Despite this I’ve managed to give my book the face time I’ve committed myself to, but it’s been painfully unproductive. I sit trying to stay focussed on my work and ignore the stressors that seem to invade the moments I have to myself. That and Burn Notice. I’ve recently discovered Burn Notice and am playing catch up.
Though it often feels like it, the last two weeks haven’t been a total waste. I’ve clarified a couple of plot points, cleared up some loose character threads, but not in usable words. Between my job and the infection that has invaded my precious face I’m not wholly committed to maintaining my average. Until I’m feeling better I’m going to be meandering aimlessly through this process, just happy to stay a little productive.
I’ve travelled to both Canberra and the Hunter Valley recently, and have found my time out of Sydney inspirational. I have drafted outlines for three new story ideas and have expanded another two into actual plotlines with detailed characters and themes. While in Canberra I also had a chance to hold in my hands the copy of Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester that cut hard into my psyche and brought me fully from my occasional interest in science fiction into something more consuming. The cover is great. In reality my broader interest in science fiction goes back to the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood, but the first firm introduction to science fiction literature came in the form of that 1956 novel.
My cousin had already put in the hard yards with 2000 AD, Bio of Space Tyrant and the Amtrak Wars, but Tiger, Tiger was the turning point. Years later he would try and get me to read The Stars, My Destination.
Current Project: 37,199 words
My qualifications for such an endeavour are highly dubious. My introduction to pen and paper role-playing came when I was bullied by an older student into playing Shadowrun (yeah, that’s right), before moving on to AD& D 2nd Edition and later the Palladium multiverse.
My HSC major work for Design and Technology was a system for making role-playing games from the ground up, entitled Elementary System for the Creation, Application and Playing of Your System Mechanics, or E.S.C.A.P.Y.S.M. With this system I created two very simple role-playing games that saw very little play testing. Three-Headed Monkey and June 6th, 1944 both lacked complexity, but departed heavily from the games I was most familiar with in an attempt to experiment with different game mechanics. I have since made three settings for D& D 3.5, two of which originally contained attempts at major overhauls to the magic systems, and four D20 Modern rules adaptations, all of which contained major rewrites.
It was within one of these rewrites that the creation of new aerial combat system arose, one that I would later play on its own. This combat system was favoured over the original rules due to its fast pace and heavy customisation for strategic play. The system was originally designed separately without referencing the D20 rule set, and then later rigged, rather unceremoniously, into a D20 Modern setting I had created. Once in it began to reject its host and infect every other aspect of the game.
Once I started playing it on its own as a dog fighting game, questions concerning the adaptability of the basic concept to include all forms of combat started to arise. This is where we are now. Welcome to the beginning.
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