I thought with the new year it should be time to update you again on my progress. A lot has changed since my last post in August, and I am going to say this now my posts on Point of View is on hold, I want to do some more research on them before I continue on that. Anyway, I’ll start with the news that hopefully in June of this year I’ll be starting my masters in Creative Writing through Lesley University. It has a program I like and I can focus on Young Readers as well, which I haven’t seen in any other program I have looked at. I’m in the process of applying now, and hopefully after March 1st I’ll hear the good news of being accepted. Only time will tell.
Anyway, some big develops have come up in some of my projects, so let’s dive in shall we?
Anime/Manga:
Valeo (Forbidden Realm Series):
I have to say my time in the military wasn’t a waste after all, while I was in Biloxi MS, at Keesler AFB, I got an idea for this series. It’s funny how the story just jumps at you in the most random of places. I got an idea that will roughly focus on the second arch of this series, I started to outline it, but found some problems I need to work out first. The series up until now seemed like it would never be finished, but since deciding to make the story bigger then then originally planned, I can see that in time I will map the whole story out.
Right now I am focusing updating Character designs and looking through what needs to be changed. I am once again working through the first arch, because this story just won’t fit in with the overall story. I think it was because I have so many ideas that were part of it originally that I took out to keep it short, that I need to pull back and start fresh and stop treating it like it is own series when it no loner is. I am starting to map out Character arch’s for each character, and how long the story will be. Once I finish that, I will move on the second arch and then the third and then the final mini series that wraps everything up.
Books:
Marks of Eilira:
This series over a year ago I lost interest or ability to work on, maybe it was because since 2006 I have worked on it every year non-stop in some form. Okay not non-stop, but a good portion of each year I have spent many hours, days, and weeks working with breaks in between working on other projects. I am happy to say I have had a break through with this series, I have decided to shrink the series from eight books to six. The reason, some of the ideas in this series, which were their own book were not great enough to be kept in their own book.
I got the idea soon after I got out of the Air Force, and bought a notebook where I started jotting ideas down, and quickly mapped how the eight books fully outlined would fit into six. Let me tell you that the bottom half of the first page where I summaries the core of each book in two or three words up to fifty did not turn out anything like it. From there I re-outlined the books into six, but only using bullets. I found that using very detailed outlines kill my creatively when I actually go to write the book. Bullets allow me to fill in the gaps but have a compass that is leading me where to head. Let’s put it this way, Book 1 is the same story, but several changes made to it. Book two is now book 3, which when If first started this series I wanted, but changed it later on. I am happy it is back where it belongs. Book 3 is now Book 2. Book 4 has been joint with book 3 since most of it dealt with lovey dovey crap that just made it not great, and felt it worked better with book 3.
Another reason was trying to fit four books into 2 did not work, it also allowed a clean break for the story for Zack at that time. Book five, which is now book 4 is the same some changes made, not too many, just the huge battle at the end was moved to the beginning of book five. Book 6 and 7 are now combined into book five. Original Book 7 & 8 were going to be joint since they have the same goal, but as I made bullets for book 7 I saw it fit better with book five. It also allowed the cliff hanger ending of book 7 to remain and not be wasted if I merged it into book 8. Book 8 is the same, but now just book 6. I am very happy with this development and have some changes to make, but if I really wanted too I could start writing book 1 again, but have decide against that at this moment. That could always change.
Facade Crusade:
I haven’t made much progress in this series, I in the process of outlining the books, and in the early part of book 3 I am finding something bothering me to the point I can’t get past. It is kind of like the blocking point I had while outline book 2. However in a months time I found the solution this has been bugging me since July. Any so I will keep in mind and hopefully I’ll find the solution. I have a feeling the main character is trying tell me that I am trying to make her do something that she wouldn’t do. Blasted fully develop characters insisting on doing it their way…. 
Narthex:
If anyone has read Stephen Kings Dark Tower Series, I am told he looped his story-worlds into that series, and when I heard he did I liked it thought about doing my own huge story like that. Kind of like Kingdom Hearts, and Pendragon together, but the difference is my worlds, that have their own stories set in them before I actually have a separate story take place in that world with those characters but with an original character. I wanted it to be ten books long, but I have recently and an idea to make it 30 books. I know 30 no one will read that many books. I would say either wise, but the story would be in chunks of 10.
Now I don’t know if I will do that or not, because that is roughly 17 series of original stories in them that got published. That breaks down to 7 worlds per 10 books. Okay not really. The idea would be 7 story-worlds with 3 dealing with the main characters story. Sort of like a trilogy inside the bigger story. That would be the first 20 books, then final 10 would have 3 new original story worlds and the other 4 would be worlds that already existed that already had a an event take place.
Like I said that is just the ideas, I am focusing solely on doing only the first 10 and see if after that the story grows bigger. I already know that two of the story-worlds that would take place. The Gathering, and Marks of Eilira. The Gathering I am going to map out the story for that book before hand. If this series never gets made, I’ll turn it into a new trilogy, trust me the book has enough to be made that way, but I want that story to be in one book dealing with this series. Only time will tell. Marks of Eilira I only have fragmented ideas for it, but the main idea would make it possible for another series to take place in that world. That is all I am going to say. I do have another series in the very beginning phase that would be link to the Gathering in a way. I am going to start keeping track of my ideas in a notebook. I think it would be easier if I mapped out the books for each series as I develop that series. If you’re confused by reading this it is okay, I am confused writing it. Only have to worry about it if I write it, and I am setting myself a goal to, but we will see. I kind of need to get published period and prove I can sell before I worry about writing this series.
The Gathering:
I would have to say this is the biggest break through out of all my projects so far, though my Marks of Eilira was pretty big. I only say this beats it because in the last 37 hours, this series has blown open. I happened on Monday 1/17/11, to find a map of Avalon but couldn’t find one that I liked. I remember Avalon having a play in the TV Series Gargoyles, so I found a Wiki site for that show and, bang. I had forgotten how rich a mythology that show had. The floodgates opened, yes I am using many things from that show as a base of the ideas, but I have direction for this series. I have an end in mind for the first book, which I had yet to have. I knew roughly the end of book 2, now that is a little more fresh and I had an idea small for the end of the series book 3. The mythology is so strong, I wanted these books to be big, huge worthy of a Trilogy and I finally think it is. I also have ideas for a 4th book, but you will need to read my Narthex to understand it, because it is a completely different book. Which I might or might not post here not sure. If you find a caption above this with that name then I decided to add it after updated the rest of my projects.
Games:
Cade:
This is suppose to be my super hero character I made up for my friend Matt’s Comic Book world, but I like what I came up with so I decided to write a story first. However it went completely against everything I came up with so I abandon that story and started on one that follows the back-story. I have three villains that will show up in this story, though I am just going with the flow. I’ll probably write some here and there, but the story idea I have is dealing with how he becomes an angry hero. I have other ideas for later on, but we will see.
Games:
War Tribes:
This game is still in the works, I am actually waiting to hear back from an outside source on the rules and game-play. Until I get that feedback, I won’t be working on this project much.
Movies/TV:
Echoes:
I am actually think I am going to head a different direction for this series, and turn it into a book series, or manga. The series would allow me to come up with the mythology how I want, then if it ever want to be adapted for media I would make it TV Series and not movies. Only time will tell, but I am really considering making it a novel series.
X:
This is a character of mine I have been trying to get into a story for years, but couldn’t come up with one great enough. I always saw him in a horror film, but then I came up with a great mythology. While I was down in Biloxi MS, I came up with a great story for that horror film, but could still relate into a comic idea I had. I am doing more research on horror films, before I write the screen play, though I have an outline of the first movie and I know where the series would end and the comics pick up.
