xmas eve

'twas the night before Christmas

and all through the house

nothing stirs - except for a mouse.

It moves a cursor onto a word.

The writer inserts ‘a’

and turns herd into heard.

 

useless bloody spellchecker

G'day dear reader/s

Xmas eve like every other day of the year is just another writing opportunity; I wouldn't miss it for quids.

Ooroo

The story, the whole story and nothing but the story.

gday dear reader/s

The story - as opposed to what I started:

But first the plot: The AI goddess, Severne in the orbiting station, has predicted a civilization  destroying asteroid on a collision course with the planet. To avert this, it needs to become embodied and wake the stations hibernating colonists. (the world below is back to pre industrial after the Day of Fire civil war)  It begins breeding and genetically manipulating the locals to produce a suitable host.


Now a little background on the tests candidates undergo  to become her host:  "Reason" implants a device that lets the AI goddess, Severne exchange thoughts with the candidate. Failures become Servers in her Towers. Successes take "Faith" which attempts to download  Severne's personality to the implant (creating the Face of the Goddess) Failures who get only a partial download become her Restoration Warriors. No one passes until Rowena.

Book 1: The Breaking of Civilization (Break)

Those who know the work or have read this blog before might notice the subtle change in the title from "Break" to "Breaking" made as I was writing this synopsis.

Pt 1: Test of Reason: Candidate Willard loves Kezia but Severne plans to mate him to her sister Averil.  The three separate. Averil meets Feral general Sumner and nemesis Stone Ethyl, Kezia becomes famous, pregnant and Severne takes the child. Willard is manipulated into the saviour role Severne bred him for and passing the Test of Reason has his mind linked to Severne's.  
Pt 2: Test of Faith: embark on separate journeys to the Wall that keeps out their uncivilized enemy, the Ferals who also want Willard  The Wall falls. Willard and Averil (now warrior) retreat to Carrier Point  for a last stand.Kezia joins them. Averil bargains Willard  to the Ferals. Willard, to save Kezia, submits to the Test of Faith but fails. The Ferals overrun Preservation Island, the Breaking of Civilization is done.

Book 2: The Face of the Goddess (Face)

Pt 1: Guilt of Sanctuary: Years pass. Carrier Point is an Uplander sanctuary in the Fedral (Feral) occupied Island. Rowena daughter of Willard and Averil surrogated on Kezia rescues Roden (Kezia's stolen son) which leads to the deaths of Kezia and Sumner (married to Averil).
Pt 2: Innocence of Face: With Sumner gone his son Hyatt, half brother to Rowena the lets Stone Ethel loose to massacre Carrier Point. Rowena and Roden escape. A recaptured Roden is force tested by the vengeful Hyatt, The test destroys his mind. Hyatt on a whim forces Rowena to the test. She passes, becomes the Face of the Goddess but fakes a destroyed mind to escape.

Book 3: The Arch of Restoration (Arch)

Pt 1: Waking of Sleepers: Rowena, the hosted AI goddess, and her Restoration Warrior brethren repair the shuttle that brought colonists Hedley & Jorgena to Nuaith,  Severne wants to return to the orbiting station and wake the rest of the sleeping colonists to save their world from a catastrophe. (Her orbiting iteration is damaged - her ground based version, in control from the start, is known only to Hedley & Jorgena.) 

This is where I'm at - from here on, it is mostly conjecture about what I plan to happen

Pt 2: Design of Ancients: Waking the sleepers rouses a deadly opponent, Willard's biological  father. Rowena activates the giant portal the Arch of Restoration to avert Severne's predicted catastrophe.

Bear this in mind when I post on the creation of book three. I can already see the part titles no longer match the action "Waking of Sleepers" would fit better as part 2's title. This is a good example of how the story detail has developed away from the broad brush outline.

One final note in an already long post  - the above is ultra brief - the whole story will be over half a million words.

ooroo

What's it all about

gday gentle reader/s

Sometimes even I, its author, wonder what this trilogy is about. part of the problem is the length of time taken to write it. Since starting in 1999 I have read a couple hundred more books and had another 10 years of life experience all of which has undoubtedly influenced my writing.

The Restoration Legends

When I began I had several notions about differences: between faith and belief, between the genres of fantasy and science fiction and between the perceptions of science and magic - all of which I wished to explore in a riveting tale that people would read first and think about later. I'm nothing, if not ambitious for my writing. 

I decided on a post apocalyptic world for the trilogy but not earth, new Earth. Specifically a colony from Australia (no prizes for guessing why) The high tech colony prospers and invents matter transmitting portals. Then on the eve of it greatest triumph, expanding to yet another system and setting up a a Portal between them, self-destructs leaving an AI controlled orbiting ship full of hibernation colonists and remnant population on the destroyed world. That then is roughly the milieu.

One of my thematic explorations is based on the Arthur C. Clarke quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_c_clarke.html#ixzz1826Ire3H On my world the remaining working technology is considered magical - and religious practices, aided and abetted by the AI calling itself their goddess, have developed around it.

Next I decided to put the recovering world in further jeopardy from a meteor/asteroid collision, so my as yet unformulated hero/heroine could save everyone - very dramatic and over the top -  I've changed that but left it in as something the locals  believe is the goal. This along with the various personal beliefs about their world and ancestry is another of my explorations

In essence it's an SF (Speculative Fiction) story that should read like fantasy in as much as the magic has a technological base that the reader can identify while realizing the characters in the story can not. The last of my explorations.

The devil however is in the detail (subject of a future post)
Next post ~ Book 3's progress.

ooroo

A 1000 words

well almost

G'day gentle reader/s

The pic of the reading room in Library of Congress was worth 789 words of description along with the action and dialogue of characters flowing through it. It comes from the opening of ch10 from Ashford's POV (who was Lee) in a scene labeled The company of Warriors.

This scene was written today but the following scene was written last week. I got so carried away writing a scene for the hosted goddess Rowena/Severn (a dual personality fighting for control of the same body) that it grew into two scenes. When I finished I went back, found cliffhanger in the middle and split it.  

Interestingly from my POV, Ashford, being the newest character is still forming, still surprising me. I don't yet know how he will turn out. He began on the side of villains, swapped when he met the one of the heroines Sarah, but he has since discovered she (like her sister Lisa) is a Restoration Warrior called Fern. He feels used, resentful, he may change back given enough motive and or opportunity. I don't know I'm only the author.  (Fern could be Brook. The twins Sarah and Lisa chose these warrior names and though I have them written down in my glossary I'm never sure which is which without looking them up.

[hey I got it right]

When I'm writing however I don't stop to Check and when I'm done it's forgotten)

The thing is, unlike the other POV characters I don't know Ashford yet. Sarah and Jorgena who newly get a voice in Arch have a history running back to Bk1 Break Giving them a POV is relatively simple and fun, making up motives for actions they took previously.

Words at ch10 = 51,000 

Daily average at day 340(2010) = 308

new E.T.A = Jan 2012 

(forget ETC, I'll stick to the standard acronym)

Ooroo
next post ... the story so far.