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’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.