Prompted by the previous day’s work, I started looking into map editors again (something I’ve done a few times in the past) and I decided to get Wonderdraft. I’d played around with Inkscape a bit, but I didn’t want to get a subscription to make the most of it, so I went ahead with a one-time purchase. Also, there are some features to Wonderdraft that I like more. For instance, being able to import my original maps is a big boon to the process as I can take what I’ve already made and then tweak it accordingly. Amusingly, the first time I imported the Tellus world map, it inverted the land and the sea. (A word of advise for anyone wanting to import a map into Wonderdraft, make sure your land is a darker color from your water.) I went about adding in mountain ranges and then moved on to the forests, but I need to figure out how to do basins and plateaus.

I’m also interested in Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator, which if I can get it to do what I want it to do, it could be a very robust tool to assist me in generating nicer maps. I need to do a little more research into it first.

Well, with all this fun with cartography, where am I going to find the time to do the actual writing I’m supposed to be focusing on? All in good time, I assure you. While it doesn’t get words on the page, I was doing some relevant research, so that should help speed things along. Stay tuned.

I ended up crashing out before I could actually get to any writing, but I did do a little more fiddling around in the Tellus Arc peripheral materials, to include some reworking of the world map. The main thing was that I committed to flipping the west coast of the Central Continent. A good while back, I mentioned the idea of translating Boreas (Hannibal) to the south so that it would be closer to Zephyr, Notos and Euros. This not only brings four major human nations closer together, but also does so for Elven and Dwarven communities as well. The southern coast of the Central Continent is more thoroughly developed as well, so it works better for Boreas as a hub of trade. There’s also the bonus of having the Dragonriders’ lands between Boreas and the Valley of Tiamat, so a number of things work better this way. I still have to deal with scaling issues and I may want to adjust the climate bands to get things working a bit better.

I should spend a little more time looking into mapmaking tools to rework things, since I’ve been promising updated maps for about as long as the site has existed. Things to do, things to do. Stay tuned.

As mentioned yesterday, my reading of the Volsunga Saga has prompted some alterations to the timeline I’d already established for The King of Hoards. I shifted most of the events back a hundred years, partially because in the Volsunga Saga, Brynhildr returns to her father’s household after Sigurd wakes her, setting up all the shenanigans to follow. I had her in her cursed slumber for 100 years previously, but now it’s just three years. Seems like more of a slap on the wrist now, doesn’t it? More importantly, I’m going to be doing a lot of development in the lands south of Norland. Earth analogues on the Planet don’t quite match up cleanly, so I’m having to decide how much I want to map the original story to this one. For instance, the Giukings (also known as the Niflungs) are supposed to correspond to the Burgundians with Gjúki as the 4th Century king Gebicca. However, the Planet’s equivalent of Bergeny is way down on the Southern Continent and too far removed to reasonably have marriage negotiations between the Giukings and Budli’s court, so I’m thinking that their lands will actually be neighboring Budli’s domain. (Lots of geographical work ahead of me, among everything else.)

Now, I’m not simply going to be rehashing the Volsunga Saga, of course. There are a number of events that I’m changing and moving around. For instance, the battle with Fafnir is going to be built up more, and so Sigurd will actually be seeking out Brynhildr before rather than after. You can argue that it diminishes Sigurd’s heroism by turning Fafnir into a raid boss, but so it goes.

As far as what should be the main focus of the week, I did do a little writing on Chapter 7 of CoP. I need to pick up the pace, though I know I’m not going to make this weekend’s deadline. We’ll see what gets done. Stay tuned.

I managed to wrap up the epilogue of TWH. It took me longer than I was expecting, so I’m not expecting to meet this weekend’s deadline for the next chapter of CoP. Also, with me reading the Volsunga Saga, I’m wanting to dig into The King of Hoards more, so I may be dividing my time between that and CoP. (I do also need to be doing my bit grading term exams…) We’ll see how things go. Stay tuned.

I continued working on the epilogue of TWH. I didn’t quite get to the end, but I just have a bit more to go, so I want to finish it before moving on to CoP. Part of me is worried that it might be dragging on a bit long, so I may do some tweaking when it comes time to post it. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I made some more progress on the epilogue of TWH and have probably about a third of the way to go. As I mentioned in the previous post, the goal is to finish before the weekend’s out. We’ll see if it gets done or not. If I still just have a bit to go, I’ll probably go ahead and finish it before moving on to CoP.

In other news, I’ve decided to follow TWH with The King of Hoards. This story is a Tellus Arc adaptation of the Völsunga Saga, so I’m reading through the source material to get a better feel for the original beyond the cursory summaries that inspired the concept. The Brynhildr Cycle ultimately leads us to the Tellus Arc’s conclusion in The End of Times, which despite being the canonical end of the Tellus Arc timeline may not actually be the last book to be written in the Tellus Arc. Anyway, one way of looking at The King of Hoards is as one step toward the end, but as Churchill said, it’s not the end or even the beginning of the end but only the end of the beginning. (Also, watch for me accidentally calling the story The King of Hordes, as I did mere moments earlier before catching it.) Stay tuned.

For a variety of reasons, on Thursday I wasn’t able to follow the pattern I’ve had going the past few days of sleeping a few hours, getting up to write and hour or so, then going back to sleep for a couple hours before having to get up for work. Also, to be honest, I was a bit stuck, but I wasn’t going to let myself miss my deadline again, so I was able to get back into the pattern and power through Chapter 27 of TWH to the end. Ultimately, the trick was to change how I ended it from the idea I’ve been carrying in my head for close to 20 years. Moral of the story: In writing, no idea is too precious to get in the way of you making it to the finish line. Speaking of which, I started in on the epilogue before calling it a night (or early morning, technically) and intend to finish that before the weekend’s out. Here’s to the impending conclusion of Novel #26. Stay tuned.

Another bit of respectable progress on Chapter 27 of TWH in the wee hours. I’m probably about halfway into the last scene, so just a bit more and we should be good to go. Stay tuned.

Once again, I conked out for a while but was able to get some writing done once I came back around. I finished the scene I was working on in Chapter 27 of TWH and started in on the last scene. It’s taken a lot, but I’m almost there. Just one more push, maybe two. Stay tuned.

It certainly didn’t look like I was going to make any progress after crashing out, then crashing out again, but after coming around the second time, I was able to put in an hour of writing on Chapter 27 of TWH to get a proper day’s quota. Perhaps I’m slipping back into that pattern I had going a couple years ago where I’d sleep a few hours, get some writing done, then round out the night’s sleep. I wouldn’t be opposed to that if I could make it happen more reliably. If I can consistently meet quota, I’m fairly confident I can finish the chapter, so I just need to keep charging ahead. Stay tuned.