Just Chuggin' Along

That's what I'm doing. Just chuggin along. Not worrying about time. Doing what I can when I can.

Working my way through Dragon Hunters, deleting more than I am adding for the most part. Incomplete sentences, incomplete thoughts. Still over 138,000 words and not finished yet! I have a number of disparate characters that come into play at various times. I could just background them when I need them, which is what I did when Tycho Station (Now DS03 Dragon Betrayal) was the first story. But I thought I would use their background stories to help show how bad things are in the InWorlds as the Republics War rages on.

At the same time I have to give the Star Traders some reasons to pull out of the InWorlds. Such as more attacks on their starships and their people. Can you imagine what the Reska Elder and his son will do when one of their starships is captured by Privateers? Or if a secret underground group on Core intercepted one of their weapons shipments to the Royal Guards?

And what does an attack on T&B's facility on Conborine have to do with the war in the InWorlds?

Then, there's all that conflict building between the DragonHawks and the resurgent Dragon Hunters.

That's a lot of conflict and drama to fit into one story, but that's why this is a saga. The conflict and drama may start in Dragon Hunters, but the battles will spread to subsequent stories. And it doesn't end until book 10, The Great Dragon. But that's about fifty seasons (years) from now.

Thanks for reading!

Dave

A Rainy Saturday!

A perfect day to get caught up on Dragon Hunters! The goal today is to streamline and remove the superflurrious garbage! Also I have a space battle in chapter 14 to finish!

DragonHawk Saga Status Report

Hello! Thanks for visiting!

The graphic at the top of the page below the blog title is a screen capture I made of all ten of the DragonHawk Saga manuscripts. They are MS Word documents open with the Document Map displayed. The blue highlight marks my current work site in each story. If there is no chapter title, just a number, then that chapter is probably empty.

The stories go from left to right, from Dragon Hunters to The Great Dragon. Currently I'm working on the left side, in the first three stories, DS01 Dragon Hunters, DS02 Dragon's Heart, and DS03 Dragon Betrayal.

Lot of work to do. But a lot of work already done.

Enough stalling! Back to work!


Thanks for reading!

Dave

Rivendell Writing Challenge Party

Some writer friends of mine and I got together last night to celebrate our July version of NANOWRIMO. We do it in the summer because some of our writers are kids who don't have time to "play" in November.

The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the 31 days of July. Don't worry about the plot, just write.

It was a small crowd last night, a number of our "seasoned" novelists were busy with life - moving into dorms for college. Some have gotten married and have families of ther own to look after.

Sort of sad in a way, but that's life. Relentlessly moving forward no matter how bad we'd like to hit the brakes and slow things down a bit.

But that's not gonna happen. So, on with the writing!


Thanks for reading!

Dave

I should be home writing. But we're going shopping. I guess I should have more of a life than just sitting at the computer. Oh well. It is what it is...

Back! To the Future... or is it Back to the Past!

Well, I am stalled out again, in my quest to document the DragonHawk Saga. With the hope of stirring the creative juices, I decided to explore my collection of chapter parts, old manual versions, and old versions of stories.

All told I have:

• 679,819 words and 2,613 pages of current version stories
• 68,199 words and 267 pages of current version manuals
• 134,612 words and 491 pages of chapter parts
• 3,403,991 words and 12,615 pages of old story versions
• 355,533 words and 1.082 pages of old manul versions

That's a total of 4,642,154 words and 17,068 pages of stuff!

While I was digging through this history of my writing, I came across the original version of Gateway Station, the original story that started my on my quest. I thought I would read through it and see how far I have strayed from my original idea.

At the same time, I updated the template and will make any grammar or composition errors I find. I tend to use the word "that" too much. In the original 1180 pages of the story (327,987 words), I have used the word "that" 3537 times!

So, I'm going back through Gateway Station, going back to the future to see if I get things back on track. Maybe I'll convert it to an E-book and see what happens.

Now, where did that flux capacitor go? Anyone know where I can get some plutonium?


Thanks for reading!

Dave

Flowers in Space?

Writing about flowers today. Flowers on the counter of a small tea shop in the Entertainment District of Gaanard:

They decided to visit the Bottomless Kupp a frilly, girly tea and coffee shop that was a favorite of their’s to talk about the events of the day. The “Kupp” was located on one of the quiet side passages of the Entertainment District, away from the noisy Main Corridor. The décor was decidedly feminine, pastel colors and lots of flowers when they could get them from the Sundai Market. Today there were a few flowers here and there, except for a large display of strange, exotic flowers from Trann’s Planet. The shop owners and them predominantly displayed on the counter with a black ribbon around the bowl.

“Oh look!” Liesell exclaimed, pointing out the display which featured fragrent tulip shaped flowers in bright primary colors arranged around the edges of the bowl. The center was filled with greenery that featured strangely shaped bright green and black leaves, and a couple of large, round yellow blooms on long stems that faced straight up. Some thin, light purple vines with tiny, dark purple flowers wrapped around the entire display. As they watched, they realized the two large yellow blooms were swaying back and forth on their long stalks, while the light purple vineds slithered slowly around perimeter of the bowl.
“Oh, wow!” Katia murmured. “It’s a live display!” The girls watched the display with fascination while their order was prepared. The bowl of flowers seemed to come alive at the sound of Katia’s voice. The two large yellow flowers slowly danced back and forth, swaying and wrapping around each other, while the vines sped up and began to chase each other dodging among the brightly colored tulip-like flowers, their stems vibrating excitedly.
“They like to show off,” The owner said with a chuckle as she placed their order on the counter.
"Can they hear me?” Katia asked, wide eyed with amazement as she reached out to touch one of the vines. Abruptly the end of the vine popped up out of the greenery, twisting back and forth as if it was moving around. Then suddenly it dove back into the greenery and resumed the chase with the others.\
“I don’t know if they can hear, or if they just sense the vibrations of someone close by.”
“How long with they live in the bowl?” Liesell asked, reaching over to touch one of the brightly colored flowers near the edge. At her touch it froze in place for a few seconds and then began shivering excitedly.
“Oh, I’ll have them for a few more day shifts,” The owner explained. “Then the Sundai will come and return them to the greenhouse where they will be returned to be with the rest of the Trann foliage. I don’t know how long they actually live.”

A good day today. I've almost written an entire replacement chapter for Dragon Hunters. Hope you enjoyed the excerpt!

Thanks for reading!

Dave