Feb 28 2017

WIP Update – 27 Feb 17

I got a late start, so I was only able to make a little progress on Chapter 19 of CeleKing1 before the little boss started insisting I go to bed. I intend to make up for it, though. Stay tuned.

Feb 27 2017

WIP Update – 25-26 Feb 17

I made my way through to finish Chapter 14 of TBP and wrote a couple lines of Chapter 15 before wrapping things up. Now it’s time to switch back CeleKing1. I’d say I’ll have it done in another two or three cycles. Something to look forward to. Stay tuned.

Feb 25 2017

WIP Update – 24 Feb 17

I made more progress on Chapter 14 of TBP. I stand poised to finish it before it’s time to switch over, meeting my goal for the week (well above the usual quota). The way I spin my tires with TSoA, it’s a nice change of pace to be moving along at a good clip. More to come. Stay tuned.

Feb 24 2017

WIP Update – 23 Feb 17

I went through Chapters 12 and 13, adding some to the end of the former and making some minor tweaks to the latter, then started working on Chapter 14. Some of the earlier work I did years ago, had a clumsy perspective shift, something I used to do at times but now avoid in favor of a consistent third person limited perspective. Having to choose between Cassandra and Rafael as my active lead, I decided to go with Cassandra, something I hadn’t done since the prologue. In both the chapters Rafael appeared prior to this, he was the active lead, but here it was more useful to put Cassandra in the driver’s seat. I don’t think it’ll be too disorienting, but I guess we’ll see. Stay tuned.

Feb 23 2017

WIP Update – 22 Feb 17

I made more progress on Chapter 11 of TBP, pretty much finishing it, but I’m not entirely satisfied with the ending. I’ll let it sit a while and come back to it later. Chapters 12 and 13 are already pretty much done, but I’ll go back over them and then move on to Chapter 14. Stay tuned.

Feb 22 2017

WIP Update – 21 Feb 17

I made more progress on Chapter 11 of TBP. I will be very happy if I can keep up progress at this rate. Stay tuned.

Feb 21 2017

WIP Update – 20 Feb 17

I made some headway in Chapter 11 of TBP. Not having any additional genealogy work to do in this story definitely helps on the ol’ progress front. I’d like to get through Chapter 14 if I can (Chapter 12 is already written if you recall), but we’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned.

Feb 20 2017

WIP Update – 19 Feb 17

Guess what. More genealogy. I switched over from Cunedda to Macsen. There are fewer kiddos to deal with, but it’s still quite a tangle. I had to compress a couple generations to get everything to fit in the timeframe I have set for the story. Now, you might wonder why I do all this, other than my OCD. Well, the complex web of marriage alliances and such are critical for having a clear picture of the political landscape of the story and the more legwork I do, the better it’ll play out in the story proper.

Take, for instance, Chapter 3 where Constantine seeks to be acclaimed King of the Britons to buttress his claim to Emperor of Rome. We have appearances by Owain Finddu and Aurelius Ambrosius, but they wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t done to work to establish their relationship in the grand scheme of things. (Owain being the son of Macsen Wledig, a previous pretender to the throne of Rome, and King of the Silures and Aurelius Ambrosius being King of Gloucester and Constantine’s brother-in-law.) It’ll all pay off in the end, but I could literally devote a month or two just to squaring away the major families. Whee fun. (Oh, who am I kidding? I love this stuff.)

I had a decent start in the week, but I let the peripheral materials consume me. Necessary, yes, but it’s not going to get TSoA1 where it needs to be for launch anytime soon. Now it’s time to switch over to TBP. Stay tuned.

Feb 19 2017

WIP Update – 18 Feb 17

I didn’t figure you wanted to see another post about the convoluted family tree of Cunedda Wledig, so I spared you a further account o non-story-related work. It did motivate me to turn my focus back to the story itself and I made a little progress on Chapters 6 and 7 of TSoA1. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m done sorting out the twisted genealogical web. Far from it. We’ll see what I can get done on both fronts before it’s time to switch over. Stay tuned.

Feb 17 2017

WIP Update – 16 Feb 17

I didn’t make any progress on the story itself, but I feel my epic grappling with the fragmented, vague and on occasion -recursive- genealogies of the major bloodlines relevant to the story deserve mention. I just wanted to flesh out the family tree of Coel Hen and I started finding these generations of 16, 18 kids and you can imagine how insane it started to get. I suppose I should be thankful for all the saints that didn’t perpetuate their bloodline as I was tracing from the 4th to the 8th Century and it’s a grand tangled mess. Anyway, maybe I can get some actual story progress done. Stay tuned.