Ahead Full! Raise Battle Screen!

Dragon's Revenge is coming along nicely. Integrating with Tycho Station and Dragon Summer pretty well. Sollar's almost home after dropping Morgan off with his grandparents on TS9329P3 (you have to read the stories to find out where that is!).

For some reason that I haven't figured out yet, I decided to name each chapter with a word starting with the letter "R" (This episode of the DragonHawk Saga is brought to you by the letter "R"!)

So far, I have Rescue, Recovery, Regroup, Resolution, Renegades, Research, Return, Retaliationi, Risk, Resignation, Reconnaissance, Reality, Reception, and Redemption. If you have any additional suggestions, just let me know.

Here's a new picture of the cats...

When you lose suction, you switch tanks!

If you work in the energy industry, you probably know what that means. But how does it apply to writing?

If you run out of ideas for one story, you switch to another? That will work, especially when you have ten stories to write (3 in actual writing process, 1 supposed to be complete but needs more editing!)

But if you are embroiled in a writing contest and need to write 1700 words a day and you are already 12,000 words behind, what do you do?

The only thing I can think to do is to jump to another chapter in the same book and try the story from a new approach.

That's what I'm going to try tonight. I'll let you know how that works out!

Tying Everything Together.

One of the pitfalls of using characters that span multiple stories is keeping track of where they are, how they got there, what are they doing now, and what are they going to do next. These characters are usually the protagonist or the antagonist, or close allies of them so their movements and actions usually affect the plot. As the author you want their movements to be like moves on a chess board. Their movements have to be carefully orchestrated to enhance the story and keep the reader interested. Especially when your readers have identified themselves with that character.

It starts getting hairy when you have 250 plus identified characters, with fifty or so who are actively involved in the storylines. You have to be careful when you kill them off and when you move them around. You have to make sure they are in the right place at the right time. If you kill someone off in Dragon Hunters or Tycho Station, you can't use that character again in Dragon's Revenge.

I started Gateway Station back in the mid-1980s. Some of the characters in Gateway Station are major characters that are featured in many if not all of the stories. So I have to reverse engineer everything to make it all work out. Or trash it and write it over.

(Yeah, I really did start this "SAGA" way back in the dark ages, writing in spiral notebooks and 3x5 cards!  I would not trade my computer for anything. My handwriting is horrible. Always has been.)

Meanwhile, Back at the Tycho Trade Station, the Dragons prepare for revenge!

Started working on Dragon's Revenge, the direct line sequel to Tycho Station. Making a little progress, but not much. Writing the story as my participation in NANOWRIMO. We write in July here instead of November, because everyone is just too busy.

This story will follow up on the end of Tycho Station, revealing some details from the Tycho Star Trader point of view. I have vowed to make it more exciting by having more action, more battles between the Tychos and the surviving OutRiders and their Reska allies. Maybe some intrigue in the streets of Conborine.

At the end, I will link Dragon's Revenge to Dragon Summer.

Oh, by the way, Happy Independence Day!