Gearing Up for 2016!

Happy new year! Yeah, I know, I'm a couple weeks late on that, but two weeks and a day in, the year 2016 is still relatively new. ;)

I'm taking this month and next to mostly do research and planing for upcoming projects, so that I can just write several more-or-less straight through without pausing for a great deal of research and planning in between. I have a few detailed outlines already sitting in the file cabinet waiting on me to finish the relevant pre-writing research, and there are other outlines in my head that can't be written until after I do the relevant research.

I'm also trying to really up my game this year. I'm paying much closer attention to daily word counts, and I'm consciously trying to push myself to triple my output by year's end. It's sort of like maxing out in weight training right now, for any who may have done that. There's a fine balance between making progress and overdoing it, as I find and then challenge my own limits, and I'm trying to find the balance that works best for me.

The project that's been taking the most of my attention in recent days is a research/planning element for the 130-volume Legends of Nod series. Before I get much further in, I realized it's time to get everything in my head about this universe down in an organized manner, and that means everything. The entire 65 million plus year history of the world of Nod leading up to book one, everything I've revealed about the world in the first four books, and everything still to come. Of course, there will be uncountable things that surprise me as I write these books, but it's important to get everything down in my notes that is already in my head. I'm writing it in the form of The Annals of Nod, which is a Silmarillion-worthy history of everything, not intended for publication (because I think it would be boring as hell for anyone else to read, unless they are perfectly obsessed). These "annals" are meant for my own reference, so that I don't have to stop mid-manuscript and work out the chronology of something that the characters may reference, or name an ancient king who may be relevant to something that is going on in a given book's plot. The document is nearing novel-length itself. In fact, I should pass the 40,000 word mark today if all goes as planned.

I have kept annals of this sort on all of my big universes of fiction, Nod, Nightfire, and Metrognomes, since the dawn of my career as a fiction writer, but it is tedious to keep them up, when I'd much rather be working on the novels and stories themselves, and the only one that is currently 100% up-to-date (okay, more like 90% ... argh, 80% ... ish) is the Metrognomes timeline. I'm determined to get all three up to date before March and keep them up to date. This Nod timeline is epic though, and it takes a lot more creative energy to put my thoughts down for this world than it does for the other two combined, because Nod is an entirely new universe, unlike Nightfire and Metrognomes, which are both Earth-based universes. With Nod, I have to invent everything from the laws of physics in the universe, to the origin of the dating system, to the holidays celebrated within the empire and their origins. I have to invent the customs, the mythology, the biology of the characters. Thank goodness so many of the characters are at least human! And while Nod itself is not an Earth-based universe, it does have a connection to an Earth-based universe, which requires even more explaining! But it is well worth the effort. The more I get out of my head and written into the canon of the annals, the more solid the world becomes for me as a writer, a reporter more accurately, of the adventures of the characters who inhabit this world. I have no doubt that this sense of a real and solid world will carry over to my readers, who I want to feel as much like they've been transported into the world of Nod as is humanly possible without the necessary use of virtual reality or hallucinogenic drugs. Though, if you have in fact designed a virtual Nod or been there in a hallucination, I must confess to being very flattered.

Now that I've filled you all in on what I've been holed up with, I suppose I must get back to it. I'm looking forward to a year of unprecedented creativity and output! Thanks for sticking by me as I take these weeks of prep time.

Peace!