Arthur Mania just won’t quit. In fact, this update comes so late because I was up till 0530 working on it, woke up around 1300 and picked things right back up. It’s been a while since I’ve been this consumed by my work. I’m mildly concerned about the potential consequences, but I suppose the only solution is to just keep pushing and get to a place I feel I can leave it.

I’ve been a lover of myth, fable and legend ever since I was a child. This should come as no surprise given that I’m an SFF author, but I’m also big into history. In fact, my minor was in history. I could easily have made it my second major, but I was getting a little weary of school by that point and was eager to begin my adventures in the Orient. One of the great things about the Arthurian mythos is that it blends the historical, pseudo-historical and the fantastic all into a single bundle, much as I’ve tried to do with my own story canon.

I was still in high school when I sketched out the first ideas for what would become The Brothers Pendragon. I wanted to use Excalibur, so it naturally followed that I would adopt the Pendragon name. I had the patriarch call himself Adam in the pretension that he was starting a new humanity. Of course, naming your two sons Cain and Abel is just asking for trouble. Going back to Excalibur, though, I envisioned this Adam Pendragon as a forgotten castoff of Uther Pendragon’s excessive womanizing who fancied himself as Uther’s true heir, seizing the opportunity he had long been seeking at the Battle of Camlann. When Bedivere goes to cast Excalibur back into the Lake, Adam (who I’ve recently decided to call Lother prior to his arrival on Tellus) intercepts and kills him, but he and his followers are transported from our world. Ever the pragmatist, he conquers the new land just as he intended to do with Britannia.

I won’t deny being rather strongly influenced by the ’98 Merlin mini series. (No, I haven’t really watched the more recent series, just caught some glimpses as my roommate was watching it.) The inclusion of Mab in the mini series had a bit of a domino effect for me. Mab happens to be involved in The Trident War Chronicles. She’s bound by Rowland in TTWC3 and forced to serve the Promethean Alliance. You remember that barrier around Maximilion that drove out the Third Legion back in Cronos’ section? Her work. Anyway, certain things are going to happen with her that I’m not going to spoil. If you’ll recall, I did a big shift of the timeline of the Tellus Arc not that long ago to resolve an issue relating to this very spoiler item. I will reveal that it’s related to the Arthurian mythos. Because the Earth and Tellus timelines are synched up (though time flows more slowly on Tellus, similar to how time flows faster in the Fairy Realm, a.k.a. Avalon), there were fixed events I couldn’t wiggle around. I originally resolved the problem with chronomancy, sending the character in question 20 years into the past to make things work. Much like Old Joe in Looper, I don’t like messing around with time travel too much, so this bit of juryrigging never did set right with me. (Speaking of time travel, there were two projects in pre-production I scrapped because of my decision to adopt a “no time travel” rule. Maybe I’ll tell you about them one day.)

Perhaps it’s that recent edit to the timeline that got me thinking about what little I’d already put down for an Arthurian story I was considering. Whatever the case, I’ve pulled out all the stops and this obsession is going to continue until I pretty well have the peripheral materials settled. Sorting through the fragmentary and often contradictory stories can be a pain, but it’s like solving a puzzle. The link to my own canon restricts my freedom of movement a little, but I’m coming up with some innovative solutions. I believe I’ve mentioned before how the already tangled genealogies of the major characters have been tangled further thanks to my love of interconnectedness. I honestly think I’ll have a hard time finding someone who isn’t related to one degree or another. Royalty!

I’m trying to find a balance among all the English, Welsh, French and Latin and it’s a little tricky to say the least. I want it to be accessible but not too anachronistic. I still have time to settle things but it’s a bit of a pain. I’ve actually taken to drawing up my own map of the British Isles rather than sifting through a couple dozen at a time to find this or than ancient and/or mythical border or feature. Learning a fair bit of British geography this way. ^_^; It’s a wonder just how much is packed into so little space. The world really was a bigger place back then.

Speaking of back then, I’ve got to curtail how far I venture into the timeline in either direction after the timeframe of the stories. I really don’t have any business going further back than the 4th Century or further forward than the 7th, but the urge to fill out the chronology is strong.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for now. There’s plenty more work to be done. Away!

I continue to be neck-deep in my work fleshing out the background of my Arthurian Cycle. Trying to compile so many disparate and often conflicting sources and weave them into a single cohesive narrative is no mean feat. Besides making the timeline, encyclopedia and story outlines, I’m also doing my requisite genealogical work and, man, is there ever the tangled web (which I am, admittedly, tangling a bit further). It’s a bit funny. I started my now terribly complex family tree with an eye for the royal family in Tellus, but it’s been the Arthurian period I’ve focused on. This sort of thing is really addictive, a testament to how much I love worldbuilding.

I’m presumably going to keep at this a while, so I might pepper future updates with some fun tidbits. Stay tuned.

I spent an insane amount of time yesterday working on the peripheral materials for the new Arthurian Cycle. The Arthurian mythos is so vast and varied combining that with both actual 5th-6th Century history and my own story canon is proving to be quite a feat but an incredibly enticing one. Honestly, all this work is coming to the detriment of my other priorities, but I’m sure I can set things aright.

Now I’ve got to decide how I want to break down the series. I’m thinking that the first book should be devoted to the lead-up to Arthur’s birth, the next one to Arthur’s tutelage under Merlin, and the last one all the tragedy leading up to the Battle of Camlann. It’s kinda funny. I’m getting so wrapped up in Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that I start to forget the character who acts as my primary link with The Brothers Pendragon. (I will say, though, man, does he ever get what’s coming to him.) That isn’t to say I lost sight of all links to the Tellus Arc, as a significant portion of the cast has been reimagined to inextricably link them up. (You’ll probably be surprised at some of the connections made.)

Honestly, I could write a whole novel just about the rise and fall of Constantine III, but all that is more a distraction that anything to the main story. Perhaps I’ll make a spinoff. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

What progress I made Saturday was mostly done in the peripheral materials. I actually spent quite a bit of time just reading my stuff. I don’t mean this to be self-congratulatory or anything, but I do enjoy reading my own work and since I write for myself first, I guess that’s a good sign.

Yesterday, I wrote a few scenes from the Earth Arc thriller Ladybug, Ladybug. The scenes were kinda stuck in my head, so I decided to get them down on the page. Perhaps the next time I get some time off, I should devote myself to just writing down all the scenes from all the different stories that are floating around in the ol’ cabeza and then worry about grafting them into cohesive narratives later. I don’t know. It’s an idea.

I didn’t get around to finishing Ionathas’ Chapter 2, but I think I’ll try devoting what little writing time I can manage during the week to restarting Tico3. I need to punch things up a bit because my current plan for the chapter is rather bland. We’ll see what I can come up with. Stay tuned.

The title for this entry isn’t in quotes because a little research turns up that it’s derived from a misquote more than anything else. When I was in the CW program at my university, the above was attributed to Stephen King. As I was trying to confirm it, I was pointed to TS Eliot. Digging into it further, I found what was claimed to be the actual quote and I decided just to dispense with the whole deal and waste a paragraph telling you about it.

I’d been crafting stories for about as long as I can remember. When I was 10, I was brainstorming an intergenerational epic about a bloodline that kept on crossing paths with the assassins of US Presidents. At 11, I started several stories that were terribly derivative (titles like Mesozoic World and Galactic Strife, still cringeworthy over 20 years later). I would, of course, swear up and down about their uniqueness, coming off much like a pint-sized Oglethorpe from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. (“Jurassic Park uses velociraptors. I use deinonychus. It’s totally different!”) I ultimately realized that these early efforts really weren’t so unique, so most evidence of their existence is restricted to the inside of my skull.

I became obsessed with originality after that, even though I continued to do a lot of rather generous borrowing. Though not terribly obvious now, the Quest for the Pendants arc of KoG2 was heavily inspired by A Link to the Past. You can still see some resemblance to the map of Byrn and that of Hyrule, though this will be less apparent once I reorient the map so that north points up.

I eventually came to see the vanity of my quest for pure originality because it doesn’t exist. No matter what conscious efforts you might make, the multitudinous influences you assimilate will unconsciously shape your product. “Nihil novum sub sole” became the motto that checked me. From then I opted to embrace my influences and be as conscious about them as I could. I won’t hide any influence I’m aware of. For instance, Sonia’s character design is a mix of Charlotte from the Samurai Spirits series(or Samurai Showdown as it’s known in the States), Pirotess from Record of Lodoss War, and Tsunami from Tenchi Muyou. I have to admit, Nobuhiro Watsuki of Rurouni Kenshin fame has perhaps helped me along this path with his own notes making no bones about his inspirations. Really, I don’t see anything wrong with it so long as we’re honest with ourselves about it. If anything, we should get a laugh out of it. (In the Tellus Arc finale The End of Times, the introductory premise bears no mere passing resemblance to that of Stargate and I don’t hesitate to lampshade it for a chuckle from the reader.)

This is quite the roundabout way of getting to my actual goal for the post and that’s a little background on It’s a Sunny Day for a Bank Job. You see, I’m a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Seeing numerous references to it on TVTropes and the rise of the Brony phenomenon piqued my curiosity, so I checked the series out and it hit all the notes I look for in a show: clever writing, appealing character design, interesting characterization, etc. (It also doesn’t hurt that it’s a way for me to bond with my niece.) I’m not an active member of the fan community, but I do peruse a sampling of fanworks and the FiM fandom is quite the prolific one. I’ve enjoyed abridged series, such as hbi2k’s rendering of Berserk and Team Four Star’s DBZA, so I started looking into the abridgements of FiM and my hands-down favorite is Greg Hoffman’s Mentally Advanced Series. Sure, the first few eps were rough, but the charm was there from the start and from Episode 5, things really took off. This led to the Rainbow Dash Presents spinoff, a sort of Fractured Fairytales take on various pieces of fanfiction. In “RDP: Haunting Nightmare”, a commenter said that there should be a heist story with the MAS characters. Cue the lightbulb moment.

Back before Episode III came out, there were a lot of rumors about what might cause the break between Anakin and Obi-wan. One theory was a love triangle with Padmé. This idea resonated with me and you can see some evidence of it in the film, but it wasn’t really developed into much of anything. It mostly just comes off as Anakin’s hypersensitive jealousy as he goes coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs on the Dark Side. Well, it was a shame to see such an intriguing premise go to waste. I then reminded myself, “Hey, you’re a writer. Write the story yourself.” The basic premise then went on to become the basis for the Brothers Pendragon prequel Broken Vows. I’m telling you all this because that selfsame reminder came to me when the idea of an MAS heist story was proposed.

Now, Sunny Day is still a long ways from even being considered for a serial run, but it’s very much becoming its own beast. The influences are there, of course, and in-jokes abound. Although it would’ve been interesting to retain an all-female main cast, I did do some gender-flipping so that the makeup of the cast more closely resembles the conventions of the heist subgenre. (There’s something to be said for breaking with convention, but it’s good to be judicious about adherence. Play up some of the audience’s expectations so your surprises have all the greater impact.) It should be accessible to general audiences with just the right amount of fanservice for fellow MAS fans. We’ll see.

Another thing about the story is that I’m using a first-person perspective contrary to my usual narrative practice, centered on MAS!Twilight expy DC. I don’t know if I’ll succeed in this endeavor, but my central challenge is to craft a real jerk who the reader can still sympathize with in spite of all his jerkiness. In MAS!Twi’s case, she’s so abrasive because she has no real concept of how healthy social interaction operates having lived her life under the iron hoof of a tyrannical psychopath. I imagine it’s very much a YMMV deal with a lot of viewers and I imagine much of what I’m trying to do in Sunny Day will be the same way. It’s a very different beast than almost any of my other stories, but therein lies its special charm for me. Also, a transformative work of a transformative work with a bevy of other transformations grafted makes for all sorts of incursive knotting that it’s bound to tickle someone’s metacognitive funnybone, even if that someone is me and me alone. Of course, I write for myself first and just hope other people will enjoy it too.

Well, it’s been a while since my last good commentary/rambling piece, so I hope you enjoy it. Maybe I can remember to hop on some of those other things that need doing. Until next time.

A whim overcame me and I started working on It’s a Sunny Day for a Bank Job. Ironically, it was the epilogue I devoted myself to writing, so now I have the very beginning and the very end but pretty much none of the middle. Not my usual approach to writing. Remind me to do some commentary on this one later.

I also applied the 26-episode format to the fragmentary outlines I have for several stories in preproduction. No, I’m not expecting all (or even any) of my stories to get TV adaptations, but I find the format as a useful frame to help direct my plotting. I believe I’ve mentioned how difficult it is for me to plot stories outside the Tellus Arc, so every little bit helps.

I may have also done a little work in the peripheral materials as well. Once again, when I tried to get started on some more Tico3, I conked out. Feh.

I’ve been a little preoccupied with other stuff the past couple days, but I need to post something. Besides his 3D work, Kazuya’s playing around with sprites for A Tale of Gottfried, or GottMono as I like to call it for short (from the series’ Japanese title, Gottfried Monogatari). You might find it a little curious as it’s not something that gets much attention, but, believe it or not, it’s the flagship series of the Earth Arc and actually the oldest of all the franchises in the canon.

First, let me speak briefly on the concept of the flagship series. Each of the Arcs (except for the If Arc) has a series that acts as the foundation for everything else. In the original three Arcs, they were naturally what came first: KoG for the Tellus Arc, Tico for the Space Arc and GottMono for the Earth Arc. The Cross Arc is a little different, being a later creation, in that the Aether War series were designed specifically to act as a flagship series. (That being said, it’s the Post-Apoc Cycle that’s most captured my imagination there.) This plays into release dates as well, as I want to reveal the Arcs to you a certain way. Should I ever actively pursue traditional publication (or even resort to self-pubbing), I’d want the flagship series to be the first ones out the gate.

Okay, back to GottMono. The basics of the characters and scenario date back as far as ’93, I think. (For comparison, the initial concepts for the KoG and Tico series were drafted in ’95.) I might talk about the idiosyncrasies of my writing career as it developed another time, but I’ll mention briefly that I started really writing in 2001. It’s coming up on twelve years now, so why haven’t you seen anything for GottMono besides the short “Nobody Likes the Chocolate Ones”?

The truth of the matter is that I find the GottMono series to be a nightmare to plot. I have a bunch of scattered scenes, but properly tying them together and fleshing them out is a real pain. Interestingly enough, I used to have a similar problem with the Tico series. I found Tellus Arc stories incredibly easy to plot, but the (then) other two Arcs just weren’t coming together for me. As you’ve seen, I overcame that problem with the Tico series and am chugging along at a decent pace (thought the rocky update history, especially for Tico1, is a testament to the challenge it’s been). I haven’t had the same fortune with GottMono, but a while back I had an idea and I think it’s a good one if I can implement it.

I may have mentioned this either on the site or on Twitter at one point in the past (around the time the idea first came to me), but I’m going to talk about it here for good measure. My idea for GottMono is to compose it like a TV series: 26 episodes with a 22-minute apiece. I don’t intend to time them exactly, but I think these parameters give me a framework to operate in. While there is an overarching plot for each book (and for the series as a whole), an episodic approach was pretty much my vision for the series from the start. This way I suppose I can balance the slice of life and the mythology.

Seeing where Kazuya is with those sprites, I spent a little time adapting my old outlines to the episodic format. It’s served to highlight just how much work I have to do. As it currently stands, I have the basis for seven eps of GottMono1, nine for GottMono2, seven for GottMono3, and 14 for GottMono4 (which has thus far proven to be the easiest to plot, perhaps because it shakes up the formula of the original so much).

Maybe all that is interesting to you and maybe it isn’t, but I thought a little peek into the process might prove educational. I’m really fond of these characters and I’d love for you to get to know them better. I suppose I’m just going to have to step up my game.