I continued to implement the edits to Tico1 up through Chapter 11. Once I’m done reconstructing the site (or whenever I need a break), I’ll continue the proofing work from Chapter 12. I also did a quick pass with the spellchecker through Tico2, 3 and 4 to add to the custom dictionary and see if I couldn’t catch anything that slipped past me all those years ago. One small thing which typifies how obsessive I can be over little details is the spellings of “civvy” vs. “civvie”. I favor the latter, but then I decided to change it to the former, only to finally decide that “civvy” is the singular noun form and “civvie” is the adjectival form, thus warranting another pass through all the manuscripts where citations of the word can be found. I’m sure no one else does this (the distinction between “civvy” and “civvie”, that is), but at least this way I’ll have internal consistency.

I mentioned before that I was adjusting the rendering of dialectic speech and that was the main thrust of the day’s efforts, but I was also making some adjustments to stage direction and such as I went. Small changes, but they add up. Once I’m done, I’ll have to compare how the wordcount has changed. Anyway, it’s back to the grunt work, so look for further updates in the Road to Reconstruction series. Stay tuned.

Before I shipped out, the recruiters hosted an event where DEPers were taken to Fort Hood to get a bit of a glimpse of Army life. (Some of the soldiers on post urged us to reconsider our decision, but we’d already signed on the dotted line.) At the end of the day, we were taken to a sports bar on post where my recruiter happened to see an old battle buddy of his. After catching up a bit, he commented on how small a world the military is. That idea stuck in my head and I’ve applied it to the Tico series. I’ve got a rather long list different points of convergence with various characters (even if they never realized it). I allude to the long history between Admiral Mfume and Admiral Xenopoulos and thought I’d give you the details here as a commentary post.

It all began in 098 when a Lieutenant Xenopoulos was assigned to the cruiser Galahad as Assistant Operations Officer. Commander Mfume was XO and later captain. The met again when Xenopoulos was assigned to the Leonidas as First Lieutenant where Captain Mfume, fresh out of the College of Naval Staff and Command, was assigned as XO and later captain. Commander Xenopoulos moved on to the Memnon as Assistant Operations Officer and Mfume followed in 107 to take the billet of captain. After War College, Mfume became the Assistant Staff Operations Officer and later the full-fledged Staff Operations Officer of CVBG43 while Xenopoulos served as Operations Officer, XO and ultimately captain of the Lysander (the battle group’s flagship). (Mfume was with the battle group from 111 to 117 and Xenopoulos was with the Lysander from 113 to 118.) Captain Xenopoulos narrowly avoided the Lysander‘s destruction when he was transferred to CVBG28 to serve as Staff Operations Officer while Admiral Mfume was the battle group commander. In 120, Xenopoulos served as Chief of Staff for CVBG27 while Mfume was deputy commander of 6th Fleet and then you already know about Admiral Xenopoulos as commander of CVBG28 joining the Ticonderoga in Operation Orpheus and the Battle of Mars in 122. As you can see, that’s a good chunk of their respective careers that have overlapped. That’s a lot of history to have tied up when Marshal Van Daan gave Xenopoulos the order to hunt down the Tico.

These two are a rather extreme case of the small world effect, but it’s precisely why there’s a lot of emotion simmering beneath the surface. Hopefully you found this interesting. We’ll see what sort of commentary post I come up with next. Stay tuned.

I pretty well wrapped up Chapter 28 of Tico4, which means the book is pretty well taken care of, but I’m going to do a read-through first before making a formal announcement of its completion. I also completed two shorts set after the events of the story, which I’ll likely put out shortly after serialization of Tico4 wraps in September. I’ll probably divide the remainder of my time on a few more shorts and the read-through of Tico4. After that, I’ll start turning my attention to Junker Jorg so I’ll have a good head-start when serialization begins. Might try to move “The Case of the Striped Leopard” along too. Stay tuned.

I really let myself get wrapped up in review fever and neglected the writing that should be my primary focus. I pretty well made up for the lost time, though, finishing Chapter 31 of Tico4 and making good headway in the final section of Chapter 28. I should be able to effectively wrap the book in one more sitting. That’ll make Tico4 my ninth completed novel. I may go ahead and work on some Space Arc shorts after that so that the Space Arc won’t be completely neglected once I start moving forward with Cross Arc stories. Stay tuned.

I managed to get Chapter 30 of Tico4 mostly finished and made a little progress on Chapter 31 as well. There was also a fair bit of work in the peripheral materials. Trying to detail over 170 years of military technology is no mean task and I still have a lot of gaps to fill.

Now I turn my attention to the Trident War series. I need to do a full read-through/edit of TTWC1 and finish the appendices in time for the update. Stay tuned.

I made some good progress on Chapter 30 of Tico4, but it took me spending a fair bit of time in the peripheral materials beefing up the history of powered armor in the Earth Union military to get it done, all so I’d know which version of the HeavySuit the bad guy would be in. (It’s a Mark 5 prototype, in case you were wondering. Spoiler alert.) I suppose I’ll spend one more day on Tico4. I need to get everything ready for the TTWC1 finale this week. Stay tuned.

I made some good progress on Chapter 31 of Tico4. You might be wondering why I jump around like I do. I’m of the opinion that if progress slows on one front, move in on another. It’s only when I have no other choice that I push forward with gritted teeth. I suppose you could say that I eliminate the parts where inspiration comes easy so that my mind doesn’t have anywhere left to wander. Whether this is a particularly good strategy or not is a question I leave to the scholars.

I suppose I’ll stick with Tico4 another couple days before switching back over to TTWC2. Stay tuned.

I did some work on Chapter 30 of Tico4. At this point, it’s looking like the book will clock in under 70K, which is rather light, but it doesn’t seem particularly less dense than previous entries. I guess there are a number of rather short chapter and I suppose all that adds up, or in this case, doesn’t add up. Well, as I’ve said in my post on wordcount, I don’t really need to worry about it that much under the current model. Just need to write the book as long as it needs to be to hold the story. A solid week of work and I may be done. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapters 28 and 30 of Tico4. I just have four sequences to complete and the story will be done. TTWC2 has a little farther to go, but it won’t be all that much longer for it either and I’ll have my ninth and tenth novels completed. Not a bad bit of work. I’ve got to keep pushing forward, though. Stay tuned.

I wrote a little more on Chapter 28 of Tico4 and played around with Chapter 30 as well. I may opt for a little change of pace. I haven’t decided yet. We’ll see. Stay tuned.