REP: Blog

Things have been chaotic for me during past few weeks. The vomiting flu has been going through my home and I haven't been able to take care of my writing the way I would like. Presidents' Day threw my schedule off such that I was thinking yesterday was Monday. Thus I just made my Tuesday post this morning.

Part 1 of The Ark consists of 22 chapters, and I just posted Chapter 19 this morning. This chapter will change Jon's perceptions. It will also lead to some very important changes to his plans, which in turn will improve the survivability of the Ark Society before and after the meteoroids arrive. With that little teaser, I will change the topic to future stories.

Most of my effort has been focused on Opening Earth Part 2. It is currently at 20 chapters, and I expect it to be somewhere around 40 chapters when complete. For a change of pace, I have also put in a bit of time on Time Scope Part 2 and The Ark Part 2. In addition to these stories, I have several new stories that I have done some work on, but they are a long way from being complete.

As I said, my focus has been on Opening Earth Part 2. I am not sure which story I want to focus on once that is complete. The following is a brief status and where needed a description of the stories I have been working on. If you have a preference for what you would like to read after Opening Earth Part 2, let me know and I will let my readers decide what my next major project will be. The stories currently in progress include:

Time Scope Part 2 - currently at 6 chapters, and I expect it to be somewhere around 20 chapters when complete.

The Ark Part 2 - currently two or three chapters containing some disjointed ideas. It needs a lot of work before it will be ready to post.

PM Chronicles - currently 6 chapters. I have gone through several evolutions on this story in order to develop a decent setting for the storyline. I thought of the story's concept while looking at chart that depicted all of the various branches of human evolution. I had also recently read a newspaper account about the research a group of scientist had conducted using monkeys. They took a small group of monkeys and dyed the fur of one monkey pink, and then put it back into the group. Their observation was the group attacked the pink monkey because it was different. This started me to thinking. What if there were a second branch of our human ancestors that were living at the same time as our current branch, and what if it were a less populous group and was more intelligent than our current group. If the scientist's research were applied to these two groups, the smaller group may have hidden their differences and lived among our current group. My story uses this concept and extrapolates on how the smaller group might have evolved and survived.

The Footlocker - about 4 chapters developed. The storyline is based on a young German college student becoming involved in the political party that Hitler was a member of during the early 1900's. As Hitler rises in power, the young student becomes involved in the Nazi party as a political supporter. Then when the aggression that led to WW II begins, the young student becomes involved with the group that helped Hitler loot Europe during the war years. Toward the middle of the war, this young man has his eyes opened as to what is actually happening within his group, and he decides to thwart the groups plan to conceal their wartime loot for personal use after the war is over. Once the young man successfully completes his plan to thwart his associates by creating false records of where the loot is concealed, he defects to a neutral country, emigrates to the US, and eventually dies. A young American gains access to a footlocker containing all the deceased man's diaries and records of where the loot was actually stored. The story goes on from there.

An Old Man's Lament - A monologue of an old man talking to himself about his life; to include, the conclusions he reaches and what he decides to do to change the course of his current life. Growing old is not a nice experience for most people, so this story will probably be dark and probably depressing. It will be an amalgam of personal experience, comments made by my friends, family, and others that I have known. While it is totally fictional, it will portray the evolution of an average person's life based on what I have noticed of our society's treatment of the elderly by the younger generation.

Officer Symms and Sam's Hopping - two short stories set in the D-Hopping Universe. I expect both to be multi-chapter stories, but do not plan on sequels.

Not My Fault - A short story about one male's opinion of the comments often made by women while bashing all men for not meeting their expectations of what a man should be in a long-term relationship.

Please Don't Help Me - so far just the bare concept of a story that came to me one day, and while I like the concept, I am not sure if it is something I really want to write. The premise is based on peoples desire to help other people with the various problems that life presents to us. In other words, the central character, probably a man, will be one of those people who believes he can fix other peoples' problems even though he has had no personal experience with resolving that type of problem. He devises plans to help his friends fix their problems, and doesn't understand why they won't accept his help.

I just submitted Chapter 6 of The Ark for posting.


The Ark has 22 chapters. Chapters 1 thru 8 establish the foundation of the story and I like to think that my readers will find them enjoyable. However, starting with Chapter 9, I will be presenting a series of events relating to what happened during Jon's efforts to finish construction of the Ark, stock it with the provisions and materials that the Ark Society will need to rebuild civilization, and gather the people who will take shelter in the Ark. I believe my readers will find these chapters even more interesting than the first 8 chapters.


Chapter 22 is the end of Part 1 of this story. I am planning a Part 2 and will decide later whether I should actually write the sequel. That decision will be made on several factors, which include my level of involvement in the other stories I am developing and reader response to the 1st part of the story.


I have received numerous emails informing me that my readers want me to write a sequel to Opening Earth. I am currently writing that sequel and have completed the draft version of about 12 chapters. I expect the sequel will exceed 20 chapters, but I have so many ideas for Doug and his entourage to address that it may exceed 30 chapters. I estimate the development time for these chapters to be 5-8 months, and then another month or so for proofreading and editing the chapters. It may be ready for posting in about 10 months. If I decide to defer some of the content for a Part 3, I may start posting earlier than that.


I started a Part 2 for Time Scope and completed the first 3-4 chapters, and I also started several other stories. When I need a break from the sequel of Opening Earth Part 2, I will work on one or more of those stories.


A couple of weeks ago, I got the idea for a short story and made a few notes for future development. Last weekend, I decided to work on the story and I finished the first draft. It still needs review, proofreading, and editing. It may also require some rewrite based on the comments I receive from Kiwi Chris.


I thank all of you for the comments I have received up to this point of The Ark. I especially appreciate the comments regarding my grammatical oversights and the OPPs that I made on the story. I have updated the chapters accordingly and will repost them at a later time.


REP

Several readers have noticed an error that I made and failed to catch when proofreading Chapter 2 of The Ark.

One of my habits when proofreading and editing a story is to take a break from the story and work on a second story.

Toward the end of my writing Opening Earth, I took a break and worked on the early chapters of The Ark. I slipped up and referred to Jon as Doug who is the central character in Opening Earth. Later while proofing and editing The Ark, I was working on Part 2 of Opening Earth. As a result of having Jon and Doug in my mind on both occasions, I referred to the wrong main character and failed to catch my mistake.

OOOPS!

I would like to thank the readers who found my blunder and let me know about the mistake so I could correct it in my master file.

REP

The Ark needs a bit more work than I expected. So far, I have edited almost all of the chapters. Three chapters are in sad shape and need major rewrite. I had lost track of my time line while working on Chapters 9 through 22. As a result I reordered several chapters.

During the final review, I discovered references to events that hadn't happened and references that early events had not yet happened. I think I have most of this corrected but will have to go through it again.

Kiwi Chris has also volunteered to assist me with review of the content and some light editing. He is currently completed Chapter 4 of the stories 23 files (i.e., a Foreword and 22 chapters). Thanks Chris.

For those of you interested in Opening Earth 2, I have been working on it when I need a break from editing The Ark.

I completed writing the final chapter of The Ark today, but the story does have a few rough places that need some work.

During the next week, or perhaps two, I will be finalizing the chapters. I should be ready to start posting the chapters in about two weeks.

My next project is the sequel to Opening Earth, although for a break when writer's block seems to be settling on me, I will probably do some work on two additional stories that I started in the D-Hopping Universe and on Time Scope 2.