I wrapped up Gamaliel’s Chapter 2 and epilogue in TTWC1 as well as added dialog to Xenomachos’ Chapters 2 and 3. Beyond that, there was a fair bit of work in the peripheral materials and some piddling about in various Earth Arc stories, with a particular focus on Max Steele. All in all, I’d say this time off has been rather productive. The next four-day weekend won’t be until June, but I a couple three-day weekends in the interim. I may be too busy with other stuff to get as much writing done as I’ve accomplished this go-around, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.

I found myself going back over some of the older chapters of TTWC1. In particular, I noted a comment from one of Xanthe’s chapters about the Notians who volunteered for the invasion of the Darklands after the fleet’s arrival in Kalonis as well as another comment later on about the Notian volunteers in the ranks of the Third Legion. The only problem was that my tallies of the Zephyrian forces’ manpower didn’t reflect this. (Yes, I keep records in minute detail about these things.) I had to adjust the numbers, making an entirely separate corps of Notian irregulars tied to the Third Legion and commanded by Ionathas (which further explains why he was chosen to succeed Duke Cronos).

I did a lot of other work in the peripheral materials, including some I haven’t touched in years and have drifted considerably from the current state of the canon. I also added little bits of dialog to several other stories as the whim came upon me. So much stuff to write. It’s crazy. ^_^;

I imagine I’ll stick to TTWC1 throughout the week and then get back to Tico4. When the inspiration hits, I’ll give some other stories some love, but it seems like I’m most focused when it comes to the stories currently in the chute. Stay tuned.

I actually did quite a bit of writing yesterday. I was about to finish up Gamaliel’s Chapter 2 of TTWC1, but I then I decided to make a change to the timeline. I wanted Solon to be in his 80s when he died, as it was originally written. You’ll recall that I did a major shift of the global timeline a while back. A number of the characters’ birth dates remained the same and so were made ten years younger. This obviously didn’t make much difference to an Elf like Xanthe or a Dragon like Corona, but ten years means a lot more to us humans. (Yes, by the by, ‘Xotikes’ are just the in-universe name for Elves. In other books, where it makes linguistic sense to call them Elves, I do, so it’s not like I’m trying to hide it or anything.)

In making the change, I also had to change the Monarch Lich’s birth date, which led me to hop on over the TTWC2. I then wound up writing and rewriting on several chapters throughout the book. The story has changed considerably since the previous draft (now over ten years old), so sometimes it’s easier to just scrap the old version entirely and start anew. Funnily enough, I didn’t actually adjust those dates until just now when I recalled that was my original purpose.

I’m also working on a lexicon of Goblinish. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on having protracted passages of straight Goblinish, just trying to work out some terms and the phonological properties of their native tongue that would influence their dialect. (Yay, more dialect. You’re going to love Urgill in TTWC3. :P)

I imagine more work on TTWC1 and 2 is in the pipeline for the immediate future. Sorry, GottMono1. Slice of life is hard to write. ^_^; Stay tuned.

I did a little writing on Sunny Day. Not a whole lot, mind you, but enough to justify this post. I also worked on putting together a spreadsheet to keep the character dialects consistent. I did something similar for Jasper and the Scotians when I was writing KoG.

Some of you may recall in the PS era how we started to see a lot of dialects show up in the localization of Square games. Some people absolutely hated it, but I wasn’t one of them. In Japanese it’s common to utilize various regional dialects as a sort of short-hand for character types (or less often, to invert expectations). This isn’t limited to stories based in Japan, as certain dialects will be used for analogous character types in fantasy worlds as well. It really wasn’t until the PS era that you started to see localization step up to reflect that more in translation. As I said, some people hated it.

Another influence was Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. Understanding the moles was often a challenge, but it certainly made them distinct. In the KoG series, I afford the reader a translation guide and more recently I provided interlinear translation in the prologue of Tico3, so I’m at least conscious of the difficulty it can pose to some readers. Shoot, as far as Sunny Day goes, an early joke is the main character he likes one of crew best because she doesn’t have an accent, so I’m self-aware enough to lampshade it. That won’t save me from those who absolutely hate dialect in stories, but I’m willing to sacrifice those readers if I have to. You can’t please everyone, after all.

Although I did most of my writing yesterday on a completely unrelated side project (over 6K words’ worth), I have much less to report that’s relevant here. I tried doing a little GottMono1 and drew up part of a scene for Sunny Day. It’s not much, I warrant, but my days off are fast approaching and I hope to accomplish more then. Honestly, I’ll probably be most productive if I stick to Tico4 and TTWC1. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I did some more writing on Ex Inferis, just jotting down bits of dialog that came to me. The structure of the overall story remains very vague at this point. Some other projects are occupying my time as well, but hopefully all that will be resolved in the next couple days. What’s next? Stay tuned.