Christmas hubbub is almost over so I should be able to get back to my regular writing schedule soon.  Hope I'm not too rusty when I get back.

Sunder: Day 51

Not a good night for writing. Been at it for over an hour and I can't seem to focus for some reason. My mind is restless and I can't tame it.

Sunder: Day 50

Hauled a hell of a lot of stones tonight.  My legs are burning and my fingers are bleeding.

Still working on the set of historical notes I'm calling The Ten Stones. It has become a point-form timeline of the progress of the commercialization of the Moon and Near Earth Objects.

Sunder: Day 49

More historical notes tonight dealing with the first decades of mankind's commercialization of space.  According to the experts I've read orbital research labs and space tourism will lead the way in the early days so, trying to keep things realistic at this stage, I have modeled the first few decades of our future history on their ideas.  I also managed to write a few paragraphs for the novel's prologue.  I had intended to write a few notes about the prologue's setting, but things seemed to develop naturally into prose so I went with it. 

Writing is getting easier.  I noted a few weeks ago how it is always difficult to get anything worthwhile done after a long absence from the keyboard.  Staying dedicated these last three weeks has gotten my imagination back into useful shape for writing.  It doesn't take as long to get focussed and I remain focussed for longer periods of time.  The other improvement I have noticed is that fresh ideas are coming to the surface more easily all the time.  I'm pleased about this, but then what writer wouldn't be?

Sunder: Day 48

More work on background notes, but I got a little bogged down.  I think I may be falling into an old trap: focussing on the fine details instead of the broad strokes.  When I wrote raw draft for Sunder's synopsis, I worried about big events and major plot lines without concerning myself with "getting everything right" on the first pass.  I cleaned things up in subsequent revisions (a process which I am still working on).  With tonight's work I found myself worrying about things like dates and times and names for orbital research companies.  I shouldn't be concerned with that now.  Tomorrow night I'm going to get back to basics and write point form notes about the progression of events from early space colonization all the way up to the return of The Ten Stones then I'll hand that off to K. and get his feedback then worry about filling in gaps and making corrections.

Work at the office is going well.  I finished more release notes today and I updated the key value reference with eight more entries.  The devs and the support analysts will be pleased to hear that.  Did a bit of Christmas shopping after work as well--picked up the deluxe Blu-Ray version of Inception for my brother-in-law.  Even got the special spin-top key chain.  I hope he likes it.

Slept fairly well last night and I was in a much better mood with my co-workers this morning. 

Sunder: Day 47

After an amazing Sunday session with K., I've decided to hold off a little longer on writing the prologue and first movement of Sunder despite the success I had on Saturday night.  We spent almost all of our Sunday session talking about historical events that backdrop our respective parts of the saga and I want to firm up as much of that as I can while it is still fresh in my mind.  The look and feel of the future in our novels will depend on getting the details right (and consistent).  Having decided that, I spent two hours tonight working up more historical notes.  "How much longer?" you ask.  I don't know.  In the two hours that I worked I probably spent half of it spinning my wheels and recovering from false starts.  My thinking took me in the direction of space tourism (which is already on the rise with the well-documented efforts of Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic) which then led into thoughts on the industrialization of space.  I'll work on this until I've got some reasonable amount of history in place that K. and I are both in agreement on.

Parallel Worlds

My life was a set of parallel worlds. Each world had distinct rules and personalities.  The chemistry, mathematics and history were different.  The basic elements, evolution and development were all as intricate and absolutely different as the life on a carbon-based world might differ from a world built on methane.  My parallel worlds were wide and smooth and clearly marked.  The atmospheres were mutually lethal.  There could be no collision course.
-- Kate Braverman, "Lithium for Medea"

(For Charlotte.  Endure, for this torment is not everlasting.)

Sunder: Day 46

You build a novel the same way you do a pyramid. One word, one stone at a time, underneath a full moon when the fingers bleed.

-- Kate Braverman

I can't even begin to describe how successful tonight was.  It was as if the last three weeks had built up to a critical mass and it finally exploded tonight.  I made some real progress on the synopsis, weaving existing threads and even laying down some new threads that (if I do my job properly) will keep readers guessing about what's really going on.  In all, I was able to finalize the prologue, all of the first movement and the opening sequence of the second movement.  Major, major progress.  K and I will have much to discuss tomorrow afternoon; in fact, I may suggest that we sequester ourselves in the basement to better focus our minds.

Outdoor adventurists look for this kind of thrill in mountain climbing or white water rafting or skiing down virgin slopes.  Stock brokers probably get it from a big score on the market.  I get it from this--from working and working and working on Sunder until the heat builds up and the raw iron begins to glow and take shape under every hammer strike.  I have missed this feeling so much that I despaired of ever feeling it again.  The story has begun to come together in a way it hasn't before, not even in the productive months before my hiatus and shoulder injury.  It is taking solid form in my mind.  In the same way that the interior landscape of The Wheel itself is beginning to reveal itself in my maps, the action of the plot is beginning to congeal in the synopsis. 

Now is the time when my legs must not flag.  Even when my arms scream and my lungs burn, I must not fail.  I must keep hauling stones across the desert in the night to my pyramid.   

Sunder: Day 45

It amazes me how much detailed background material a story like Sunder can generate.  Tonight I started a historical background piece called "The Ten Stones" based on an idea that my writing partner and I have been talking about for the better part of a year (or more).  Events that underly the opening sequence of Sunder are tied historically to the ideas he and I have talked about in "The Ten Stones" and I wanted to capture 4 or 5 pages of ideas.  Didn't get quite that many, but I'm off to a good start and should be able to get a lot done tomorrow.  (It always takes a while to get started when organizing your ideas.  At least I find it does for me.) 

Productive day at the office.  Managed to complete another set of release notes--that's 3 this week.  The backlog is shrinking.  Professional Services and Support catered a breakfast for the company today and it was quite a spread.  Eggs (scrambled or western omelete), sausage, bacon, homefries and hashbrowns, pancakes, french toast, fruit...you name it.  It was like getting punched in the mouth by delicious. 

Housework tomorrow. :(  Laundry.  Cleaning.  Yuck.  But if I can get that done in the morning I'll have time in the afternoon to do some Christmas shopping and maybe have some time in the evening to do some writing.  Sunday will be spent at K's house smoking cigars, drinking whisky eating meat and "talking story".  I love Sundays.

Sunder: Day 44

For all intents and purposes, the background material I've been referring to as "Niemeier's last big case" is complete.  All the ins and outs of the murder and its investigation have been documented and I can finally get back to revising the synopsis.  After how many weeks?

Indeed it took a long time to get to this point, but when I look back on all that I accomplished, it was worth taking the time to do right.  I have a new map, a new police rank structure for the LFPD and a well-documented piece of "history" about one of my major characters.  Even more exciting is that this work has given me an idea for a better subplot for Niemeier that will overtake his life as Sunder unfolds.

Time for bed.

Sunder: Day 43

More mapwork and more progress on some background details.  It feels good to be in the full swing of things again.  The mind is buzzing with ideas and it was good and quiet at my apartment tonight so I was able to work at home.  I'll be back at the office after hours tomorrow, though.  I think I work better there.

Sunder: Day 42

Sense of place is important to me in novels, especially in science fiction novels where the settings are generally places we have never been: futuristic cities, space stations, starships, alien planets or the interstellar void.  Wherever it is, I want to feel the fiber of the place.  One of the best sci-fi novels I have ever read is also one of the best ever written: Dune.  I have read that novel so often it is dog-eared and the spine is curved.  The rest of the novels in the series are not much better off. 

Frank Herbert's masterpiece is an excellent example of sense of place.  I have stood with Mua'dib under the white glare of the relentless desert sun, suffered the dry wind as it sucked the moisture out of my pores, endured the grit and dust fine as talc that found its past the seals of my stillsuit and marveled silently at the wind-carved beauty of the dunes.  Frank Herbert, through careful research and persuasive writing, was able to give all his Dune novels a sense of place. 

Another novel with impeccably wrought detail is Perdito Street Station by China Mieveille.  When you read it, you can feel yourself on the banks of the River Tar or hiding in the Glasshouse, wary of the fearsome Cactacae or looking up in wonder and awe at The Ribs soaring up out of the ground and curving over you like the empty ribcage of a dinosaur.

I'm trying to achieve the same effect with Sunder and the rest of books in The Titan Artifice.  Part of how I'm preparing for that is through maps.  If I don't know where I am in the novel, how can I convince a reader? 

Most of Sunder takes place inside a massive space habitat, but it's largely empty at this point.  I've roughed in the synopsis and named a few odd places, but a lot more work needs to be done before it can have the "sense of wonder" I hope to achieve.  I spent most of the night drawing a new, expanded map of the interior of The Wheel, trying to get the dimensions right, working out the placement of major transit ways (The Wheel is 5 miles in diameter and 3 miles wide from edge to edge for a total internal area of about 45 square miles) that link residential, commercial and industrial districts.  I had names for those places on the other maps, but the districts were blank--no roads, no buildings, no landmarks to speak of.  Tonight I filled in some of those blank spaces so that when it comes time to write, I will be able to do so with a sense of place.

Tired now so it's off to bed.  More work tomorrow.