Saturday, September 29, 2012

A Rainy Saturday...

A rainy Saturday, a cup of coffee, some music. Maybe I can get something done today!

Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading,

Dave

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Progress... At Last!

I've worked my way through a big battle scene involving 2 privateers, a Reska armed transport, and a squadron of warships from Core, led by a battle cruiser and two heavy destroyers. Two weekends and a lot of late evening writing and editing to sort it all out. Maybe I'll send it to someone to see what they think of it. It's too long to post here, unless I made a PDF of it.

I really need a real website where I can post stuff like that.

Now I am rewriting and editing the attack on the T&B construction site on Conborine and the strange disappearance of Lady Annie Tolen. Boy is Elias and the Tycho Star Traders going to be angry when they find out she's gone missing!
Thanks for reading,

Dave

Saturday, September 8, 2012

StarHawke Enterprises

What is StarHawke Enterprises?

Well, that's the name of my writing empire, if and when it ever turns into a writing empire.  Right now all it consists of is a lot of words and ideas.  See the table below for details:

         
Story Name
Word Count
Page Count
00 Dragon Stories
8,730
41
01 Dragon Hunters
139,645
410
02 Dragon Heart
33,926
111
03 Dragon Betrayal
176,802
641
04 Dragon Revenge
18,346
92
05 Dragon Summer
122,078
358
06 Dragon Return
25,188
104
07 Dragon Trap
118,420
434
08 Dragon Rising
88,474
347
09 Dragon War
4,315
64
10 The Great Dragon
169
52



Story Totals
727,363
2,613
Story Average
72,736
261



01 DragonHawk Saga Rules Manual
6,323
42
02 DragonHawk Saga Development Manual
14,358
72
03 DragonHawk Saga History Manual
13,049
140
04 DragonHawk Saga Reference Manual
34,611
13
Current Manuals
68,341
267



Chapter Parts
134,612
491
Old Story Versions
3,403,991
12,615
Old Manual Versions
355,533
1,082



Grand Totals
4,689,840
17,068



Total New Words
410,091

Number of Days
252

Average Writing Rate Per Day (Since Jan 1, 2012)
1,627


How did I figure all that out? Well, its' one of those things I worked out when I was distracted (something that frequently happens), and I started playing with this big spreadsheet file I created. There are multiple tabs with individual spreadsheets to keep track of important information such as character names, starship names, company names, planet and system names, military units, DragonHawks and their Dragons Within.  The spreadsheets feature columns by story name so I can track where a character is, anywhere within the DragonHawk Saga, or if they are dead, or haven't been born yet.

Anyway, I got into working out a way to count all of these different categories, so I set up formulas to count rows if there is any information in that row. Then I set up the tab you see above to summarize all of the data. Later on I added tabs to spreadsheet to track old story versions, chapter parts, and out of date manuals. I don't throw away anything I have written. And I often refer back to older versions of stories or chapters for ideas for the current version of the saga.

I got to thinking about all of this when I realized that I have written over 500 new words in the past few days (Thursday night and Friday night through about 1:30 AM this morning. I'm actually editing Dragon Hunters, fixing story discrepancies and poor writing techniques, making the story tighter and flow faster. This story is about about the emergence of the Dragon Hunters after some ten thousand seasons (The end of the first DragonHawk War) and the threat they pose to the current day Drakkon, led by the StarHawke Tycho, Makala Hawkes. The resurgence of the Dragon Hunters is one of signs of a prophecy that calls for the return of the Great Dragon. And that's what this saga is all about, the return of the Great Dragon who will unite the Star Traders and all of the people and worlds of the Thousand Universes.

So that's a good thing. Maybe life will settle down for a while and allow me to get caught up on my writing. Our second grandchild and first granddaughter is due October 17, so I know things won't stay quiet for too long!

But that's okay. I'll just lug the laptop along when we go to Austin and write while Caitlyn and her momma are taking a nap!


Thanks for reading!

Dave
     

It's all in my head!

Hi there friends and readers of the DragonHawk Saga! It's Friday and I am happy to report I have resolved some of the major problems I...