Statement of Intent (oo... grand, eh?) - Incursio

[DaddyHoggy]

Up to 40k, but progress slowed by RL, summer now looking optimistic, but will keep plugging away...

Having fun though... Coyote+Derik+Udian+Rebecca+Jim+DaddyHoggy = FUN

Cheers,

Drew.

I am so looking forward to this...

[drew]

About 46k at the moment. Had to do a plot-twist rewrite today, not quite complete. Makes the story better though, and should have people guessing longer, including the characters in the story.

Favourite Segues at the moment:

1. Commander Myy'q spills his drink
2. Commander Cheyd and the 'amazing' new Cobra Mk4
3. Rebecca and Coyote in a mexican standoff
4. Jim being educated on the finer points of verb tense by Daddyhoggy
5. Derik trying not to develop a fetish for decontamination grease
6. Captain Hesperus and a big decision. Anlian Gin or Eviljuice?
7. Udian relishing terrifying everyone with needlessly descriptive details of Thargoid one on one combat

Epic space battles, high adventure, cliff hangers and a smattering of hopefully well-crafted one-liners goes without saying of course...

Reckon I'm just over 1/3 of the way through. At this rate, we're looking at late summer. (End August)

Cheers,

Drew.

[DaddyHoggy]

I'm intrigued by no. 4!

[Cody]

I'm intrigued by no. 4!

As am I by no. 3... very!

[drew]

I'm intrigued by no. 4!

I spent a whole set of train journeys working out who and what 'Daddyhoggy' was in the Oolite 'verse, where he was going and what he was doing. Hope you like...

As am I by no. 3... very!

Let's just say that Rebecca and Coyote don't *exactly* hit it off at first... It would have been far too boring if our collection of heroes and heroines all got along 'just so'...

Cheers,

Drew.

[Cody]

It would have been far too boring if our collection of heroes and heroines all got along 'just so'...

Absolutely!

[Capt. Murphy]

Can't wait drew. I devoured the first two instalments a few weekends ago (along with all your shorts). It's your fault I'm obsessed with Oolite again.

[drew]

Can't wait drew. I devoured the first two instalments a few weekends ago (along with all your shorts). It's your fault I'm obsessed with Oolite again.

Heh heh...

I consider that a job well done...

I think Incursio will be quite a bit more of a novel than the other two; deeper, longer, more satisfying (and a few other mis-construable adjectives). Reckon on 120-140k words (compared with SQ @ 50k and M at 75k).

Thanks for the encouragement folks. RL is a bit crappy at the moment, so it's very welcome to have the support!

Cheers,

Drew.

[Cody]

Reckon on 120-140k words

<bows his head in awe> And I thought writing 25k words was hard work... wow!

[DaddyHoggy]

Can't wait drew. I devoured the first two instalments a few weekends ago (along with all your shorts). It's your fault I'm obsessed with Oolite again.

Heh heh...

I consider that a job well done...

I think Incursio will be quite a bit more of a novel than the other two; deeper, longer, more satisfying (and a few other mis-construable adjectives). Reckon on 120-140k words (compared with SQ @ 50k and M at 75k).

Thanks for the encouragement folks. RL is a bit crappy at the moment, so it's very welcome to have the support!

Cheers,

Drew.

That's some expansion Drew - when we first discussed the new work you were aiming for 100K words - so that's a fairly chunky increase - a third and final installment as big as the first two parts in total...

[Endless Possibilities is a smidgen off 60K words at the moment - although I don't feel like I'm half way, so I'm probably looking at about 150K words in total]

[Cody]

Endless Possibilities is a smidgen off 60K words at the moment - although I don't feel like I'm half way, so I'm probably looking at about 150K words in total

<bows his head in awe again> Crikey!

[DaddyHoggy]

Don't bow in awe until it's finished! I've been here before with a previous novel - I got to 90K words with that before I got bored/distracted/frustrated and stopped writing

[Cody]

I'll stick to 20-25k words, I think. Anything of novel length would take me years.

[DaddyHoggy]

That's what happened with my first novel - even I lost interest in it...

My friend Katherine - now on her ninth novel - wrote seven before she got a book deal - said she has to go from idea to finished 1st draft of a novel in nine months or so otherwise she gets bored and loses interest - which is great for her now - because she gave up her job and is now officially a full-time author (she tries to write 15-25K words a month)

[drew]

Don't bow in awe until it's finished! I've been here before with a previous novel - I got to 90K words with that before I got bored/distracted/frustrated and stopped writing

Torn was like that. Took me 6 years to get it finished and it changed from a fantasy epic into a contemporary romance in that time...

<bows his head in awe> And I thought writing 25k words was hard work... wow!

This will be my last 'Oolite' story, so I'm trying to pull out all the stops and go out with a bang, passing the torch and all that... I've also got to do justice to having 6 main characters and a host of supplementary ones in, rather than the 2-3 I had in SQ and M.

There's a lot more in terms of dynamics here; Coyote and Derik. Coyote and Rebecca, Derik and Udian, Udian and Rebecca. Daddyhoggy and Jim, Jim and Hesperus... making sure each character gets enough 'air-time' is key, as is fleshing out a little more of the motivations and personalities; positive and negative. Trust, distrust, doubt, bravado, concern, fear, worry etc...

It's not really a chore, it's just taking longer to tell the story, hence the extra length. So far the characters have only really just begun to understand each other a little and there's been two major 'altercations'. None of the mystery has been revealed, but most of the stage is 'set'.

We'll see how it goes!

Cheers,

Drew.