Kenn Ghannon: Blog

Yeah. I know. I missed the posting deadline this morning. It's fairly late, but I've submitted it in the queue - as well as Saturday's and next Tuesday's chapters. I've been on stay-cation and - well - I've done a whole lot of NOTHING (except spend some time with my lovely wife in a local national park - which was EPIC).

Anyway, I'm off for a few more weeks ... hence the 'posting in advance' of the next few chapters. I hope to also post next Saturday's tomorrow but I might not. If not, I'll get to it eventually. If it DOESN'T post (for whatever reason), I'll catch up as quickly as I can.

Thank you for reading!
--Kenn Ghannon

Every year, my family and I set aside a few weeks around the 4th of July to return to where my wife and I grew up for her family's family reunion. Since my time off needs to be scheduled 6 months in advance at work, I took this time off back in December (to be sure no one scheduled it before me).

Enter Covid-19, the Wuhan Flu or whatever they're calling it this week. The reunion was cancelled about a month ago and my wife's parents would rather we not visit this year, for obvious reasons (they're in their mid-80s and my father-in-law has had health problems the last few years). So, our trip was cancelled.

All is not lost, however. We've decided to spend a few days just travelling. It won't cover my entire vacation - but it should be fun.

We were also planning a trip to Disney World in May. Once again, enter the flu. Disney World closed. At the time, I was lucky enough to get that time off back and we rescheduled our Disney trip to later in July. We were very lucky, we didn't know if they were going to be open and we'd have to reschedule again (I have school age kids, so going much later in the year was pretty much out) but it turns out Disney World is re-opening.

All of that just to say - I won't be around much for the next month or so. I know I owe quite a few people some return correspondence (I work hard to reply to every e-mail sent to me, even if it's just a thank you for writing) so I'll try to get those answered. SOL has their amazing delayed posting capabilities, so I'll try to make sure the 'well never runs dry' for the story - but mistakes might happen. Finally, I'm hoping to get some more work done in 'Runesward, Tome 2' and maybe a bit more in on 'Incapable'. Somewhere in there, I'd also like to get started on the 'Ring of Command' re-write and conclusion.

Damn. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation.

Just a quick note this time. If youve written me in the past two weeks and I've not responded, I apologize. I am very far behind on my correspondence. I will catch up ... soon.

Well, life got a bit away from me and I didn't get a chance to post chapter 5 until just now. It should be in the queue and will get posted at the next opportunity the moderators have. Since it's so late on Tuesday, I'm not sure if it will post before tomorrow but we'll see...

'Fairly CAPable, Chapter 3' has been met with mixed reviews. When I wrote it (four years or so ago), I thought it was a bit innovative for the Swarm Cycle. I wanted to use Chapter 3 to compare and contrast the different points of view of each of the concubines, to delve into their characters a little. I couldn't think of a better way to do it - in depth - as describing their thoughts as they first set foot on the moon base.

When I create a new character, it starts with a name and age. I then go and build up their family - even if I never plan to use the family members. As I go on writing them, I build up who they are. When they say something or do something, I always review their actions to make sure what they say and do is in their character and in line with their motivations. Chapter 3 was my way of sharing some of that background with the readers - I thought it would give some insight into why Calix's women do some of the things they do.

One of the largest complaints about Chapter 3 is it's too slow. It doesn't advance the plot. I think those arguments are valid.

Personally, I'm happy with how it turned out. I agree it's slow. I agree it's long. I'm proud of it, though. I was especially proud of the way each described the window layout - it's the same window but different from each person's point of view. Maybe I was trying to be too clever for my own good.