REP: Blog

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.

I have received many inquiries regarding my next installment of the story Opening Earth. Yes, there will be a sequel, and I have started writing the sequel. I also started two other stories in the D-Hopping Universe. However, my primary focus right now is on a story that I call 'The Ark'. Once I complete that story, I will return my focus to the sequel to Opening Earth.

The Ark is about 80% complete. I estimate that I will be able to complete the story in about 2-3 months, if other things like honey-dos don't take up too much of my time.

At this point in time, the Chocolateen and Ancient Abilities series are complete and I have no plans for further sequels, although I did leave the door open for a further sequel to Ancient Abilities Part 2. My main reason for not planning a further sequel is that I received only a couple of emails about these stories from my readers, thus it appears that they are not enthralled by the storyline. If that is the case, then I will let the story end at this point.

I received a fair amount of feedback from readers requesting a sequel to Time Scope. I developed an idea for Time Scope 2, and put together the basics of a storyline for that sequel. It will take a good bit of time and effort to finish that sequel, so I probably won't get back to it until my D-Hopping Universe stories have been completed.

I have four additional stories that have been on my backburner for a long time. Back when I first started to write fiction, my story and writing skill were rather poor, and my first few stories were put on the backburner, until I decided what to do about them. One of those stories is the second story I ever attempted to write, and I called it 'The Pink Monkey Chronicles'. I find the premise of this story to be very intriguing, and it is on my list of stories to complete. The start of my first version was set in the late-1800s, and my second version was set in the future. I am not happy with either version, so this story will take a lot of time and effort to complete.

I thank all of my readers for the support you have given me during my short career as a writer of fictional stories. I would especially like to thank Kiwi Chris for the effort he provided me on Chocolateen Part 2 and Ancient Abilities Part 2.

Hopefully I will be back to posting in about 3 months, so until then may you find many good stories to read.

REP