Today I wrote three pages of stuff for school, but that doesn’t count, right?  I did manage a bit of work on 82 Eridani: Journey.  It’s the first time I’ve done anything in weeks.  It gave me a chance to get the feel again a bit.  This book has my most messed-up characters, so it’s easy to get into.  Today’s bit was about one of the main characters, upset that she can’t get ahold of her lover, who just put her in the hospital.  Like I said, messed up.  If this book turns out anything like it is in my head, it will be my favorite book– chock-a-bok full of spaceships, robots, aliens, genetic manipulation, murder, rape, infidelity, and tomatoes.  Yes, tomatoes.  The vegetable fruit.  I’ll keep you posted.

The other evening, I shared chapter eight with my writer’s group.  I got pretty positive comments.  I’ve still got notes from the last two meetings to go through, but I’ve started on chapter nine.

Chapter eight involves one of the character’s reaction to finding that his wife is cheating on him.

It seems like I’m just a little more behind every day, but Spring Break is only two weeks away and after that, it’s only ten weeks till summer.  I can’t remember ever looking forward to anything as much as I am this year to summer.  Still, I’m cranking away, managing to get some writing done here and there.

This is my sketch for the starship in 82 Eridani.  It is described in the story as looking like a 16 penny nail flying through space head-first.

You can see some of my notes and adjustments made on the fly.  You might also note that this is drawn on the back of a 7th grade History worksheet.  A lot of those have been used as scratch paper for story details over the years.

82 Eridani: Journey is going to be the first book in a seven book series.  I was kind of inspired by Game of Thrones (which I have not read, but have watched).  I thought “I need to write a story like Game of Thrones.”  One filled with sex, violence, and violent sex; one based loosely on historical events; and one that plays out over a vast setting and over a multiple book series.  Of course, there is already a Game of Thrones– so I’m not going to write it again.  Besides, I want to tell my own stories, so instead of writing a fantasy story, I thought I would write a space/sci-fi series.

The first book, Journey, as the name implies, is all about the journey to the new solar system.  There is a plot in the story of course, but it is also about introducing characters and themes that are continued throughout the series.  Here are a few hints of what is included so far: genetic manipulation, robotics gone wild, adultery, serial murder, spying, and lots and lots of space sex (which is just sex, but in space).

I’ve had the basic outline for what is becomming 82 Eridani for about 10 years.  The basic premise is a starship from Earth arriving in a distant solar system.  The overall plot is based on events occuring during the exploration of America in the sixteenth century.

Originally I had planned my alien solar system to be Vega.  I have read several great sci-fi stories that use Vega as their setting.  But as I began thinking of the various things I wanted my setting to do, I thought that the one I had picked might not be quite right.  I spent a few weeks reading about the stars in our Earth’s neighborhood, finally settling on 82 Eridani as my best choice.

Tomorrow, a little bit more about this story.

I read chapter four of 82 Eridani: Journey to my writers’ group last night and received generally favorable feedback.  Writers’ groups are a great resource for any writer and mine “The Shared Word Writers’ Group,” despite being quite small, has been a great help to me.

I’ve shared the first four chapters, but I’ve written six so far.  These are fairly long chapters and this will be one of my longer books– 4,000 word chapters x 30 chapters = 120,000 words.  Of course, that’s just how I’ve plotted it.  My books usually tend to end up shorter than originally planned.  For instance, The Voyage of the Minotaur, The Drache Girl, and The Two Dragons were all plotted out at 125,000 words and they ended up being 110,000, 105,000, and 106,000 respectivley.

Stay tuned tomorrow, for a little background about the book.

The three mile-long interstellar spacecraft Constellation was designed to explore and colonized the Sirius Star System.  The problem is, that it isn’t going to Sirius.  The $14 Trillion spaceship has been hijacked by its commander and is flying toward the 82 Eridani star system, and none of the 7,000 crew and colonists know why.  None of the crew members, including the commander, are ready for the shock of what they will find when they finally reach 82 Eridani.  Journey is the first volume of a seven book series.

I started on this book over the summer and really shot through the first few chapters.  I decided to set it aside as I finish up the other books on the Previews list.  I plan to have it done in the first half of 2013.  This is the first of a seven book series and I am really looking forward to it.