An Issue of Time

Mainly that my timeline is suffering in later chapters. Some of the events in the previous chapters will need to be revised to better fit into the day-to-day action as I imagined it. Sloppy on my part I know, but then everything I'm trying to do here is new to me, especially the number of viewpoints I'm trying to juggle at once.

Anyway, I'm spending some time getting them all lined up on paper this time so the relationships are clear and properly organized. Then when it comes time to revise the early chapters I'll rearrange scenes as necessary to fit the revised and correct timeline.

Not what I wanted to be doing at this stage in the book, but good I've identified the problem now and fix it for the remainder of the book.
Writing is also coming along fine. Am about 4100 words into chapter 8 so far and thinking on chapter 9 as well where everything comes together. Wish me luck.

Chapter 7 Posted

Chapter 7 - The Verdant Swan is now ready for your reading enjoyment.

Archer learns a little bit about the sea while Hieronymus is mugged and the Hand continue to follow Archer.

Had a lot of material to work with here and soon discovered I had too much for the chapter to hold, so moved some scenes to chapter 8 and what looks to be a new chapter 9 to finish off this section of the book.

Enjoy

Chapter 6 completed

When I completed chapter 5 I found I had next to no material to bridge between where I left off my two heroes and the conclusion of when they first meet each other. What to do?

Well, I thought about it for a bit and then started writing. Before I knew it I had more than enough material for chapter 6 and some leftover for chapter 7 as well. Anyway, it all came together beautifully so here is chapter 6 almost 4 days early, and chapter 7 is probably 1/3 complete as well.

Anyway, we meet Alethea (formerly AURORALLAN), the Master Librarian, get her and Hieronymus together for the first time, and show Hieronymus raising concerns with his excessive winnings at the Golden Quail.

Onto chapter 7, Archer arrives in Choy.

Chapter 5 posted

Just posted chapter 5 - Slipping Away for your reading pleasure.

Things are moving along as Archer slips out of the city ahead of his Hand pursuers.

Also, the  temporary name KEETHANNE has been replaced with the real one Correenaura in this chapter, so please don't be confused from its usage in earlier chapters, its the same character.

Enjoy

Chapter 5 draft complete

Finished the first draft of chapter 5 last night. Archer's running from the Brotherhood and finds help in an old friend that has some mystery all his own. Need to let it sit for a couple of days before I do another read and edit prior to posting. Should be up this weekend.

Also, added some additional material to chapter 4. In retrospect I decided that Hieronymus' day ended way too soon so have added a close to his day. I solved my problem on why his message is not responded to as well by the Master Librarian. Not sure how far I'll take that plot line but the one scene works well.

Chapters 3-4 Added

New chapters 3 and 4 added to Drafts page.

Sorry for the lame formatting. Google keeps rewriting the damn HTML code to suit itself and destroy the little bit of whitespace normally seen between paragraphs. Really pissing me off. Why provide an HTML editor and then ignore my formatting directions. ARGH!

Enjoy

Updated Chapter 1 and new Chapter 2 Posted

A completely updated chapter 1 (draft 3) based on feedback and continuous re-reading trying to find faults. A little more detail, a little more directness, a little more polish. The draft number after the title will key you into updates of the material as they occur.

Chapter 2 (draft 1) introduces my other main character, Hieronymus the mage. Hieronymus has some mystery about him and an entirely different story arc to work through.

Working on Chapters 3 and 4 and hope to have them ready to share by the weekend if everything works as planned. IE, I get enough time during the week to finish a couple of missing sections and to edit what I already have to make them more seamless with chapters 1 and 2.

Enjoy

Expanding the Pool

So I had an extremely productive weekend. Woke up on Saturday with about 5 issues resolved in my mind. I went to sleep mulling over the problems and awoke with the answers. I immediately sat down at the computer and started making the changes before they could drift away.

Later in the day I also began expanding chapters 3 and 4 with new material. Now that I'm feeling more comfortable with my character voices it feels easier to write about them, things are flowing, actions and reactions coming more naturally than before. I've read that this is a good sign. When you start to identify and understand your characters better it makes them easier to write.

Worked some more on this blog site, as you may have noticed, then went searching for a writers site in which I might also find other willing to review what I've written so far. Came across fantasy-writers.org, a perfect match at first glance. So I joined up, introduced myself and posted a couple of chapters for their feedback, then spent some time in their forums getting a feel for the place.

Sunday was more of the same with more new material added and some more revisions made to chapters 1 & 2.

Death in Alexiandrölarn (DRAFT) Posted

The name of my project is The Forgotten Empire, the first in a fantasy trilogy set in the world of Bulinnarm. Its based on some major locations in the history of Bulinnarm and introduces some characters I've been developing for years, Archer and Hieronymus.

With that in mind, my first chapter is now available for review and feedback. It's called Death in Alexiandrölarn and introduces one of the two main characters in the book, Archer. Click on the Drafts link above to read it.

In the chapter I introduce Archer, a young assassin who's suddenly found out things aren't as good as he thought. He's been a member of the Brotherhood, the assassins guild in Alexiandrölarn and his latest assignment did not go well, and he wants to discuss it with the guild master. Naturally, what could go wrong with that?

Enjoy

Thanks for all the fish

Yesterdays announcement of the site was a bit chaotic to say the least. Incorrectly linking to the site, twice (OMG), should not have happened. For those of you with the patience to view each message and finally locate the site, thank you. I'll definitely strive to do better in the future.

That said, I hope to start posting some content soon, possibly this weekend, in the form of maps and partial chapters as they near completion, so you can get a better idea of what the project consists of and see some of the material I've created over the last few decades.

Again, to those that made it through the minefield of bad links, thanks for your support.

Who am I?

I've been a professional technical writer for 20+ years concentrating on the developer tools and technologies used to create the software regular people run and enjoy on their computers and for the last few years their mobile devices.

When I was first getting started I managed to write and self-publish two books on programming for an obscure Macintosh BASIC developer tool called FutureBASIC, both are now out-of-print but still listed on Amazon. Both did moderately well at the time as I learned a lot about working on large writing projects and managed to update my entire computer system to the latest and greatest from the proceeds.

Where once a 5 page report in high school was a major task, today I am barely warmed up at that length. Since those days I've probably written another 15-20 novel length manuals on developer tools. Over three years I managed to take an initial product manual of 64 pages (not written by me) and expand it into five separate manuals with a total page count approaching 600. I had a lot of help from the programmers who continued to add feature after feature forcing me to explain them all, in copious detail.

Of course, writing fantasy based on the ideas stirring around in my head as opposed to fact based technical material is a real challenge. The voice, the audience, the expectations are so different than what I do in my day to day work. But its a lot of fun to explore all the stories I've been dreaming about for years. Only time will tell if you get as much enjoyment out of my stories as I do creating them.

Welcome to Bulinnarm

Bulinnarm (BOOL-i-narm) is the name of the fantasy world I created 30+ years ago when I started running a D&D campaign for friends and co-workers. Even at the time I knew I'd want to tell stories set in this world and designed it to be interesting, logical, expansive, and hopefully a lot of fun.

Over the years I've come back to my plans to shuffle content, add new material, and generally update the design for use. About 10 years ago I started writing several novels based on my character ideas, unique locations, and historical events. I soon ran out of steam and set all that work aside, waiting in digital bits on one computer after another.

Last year, the bug struck again and I reviewed all the material previously created. This time I took the better parts of each and combined them into a single manuscript. Since then I've been working on the first novel of a series. So far I'm about 2/3 of the way to a completed novel. I spent the last week rewriting the opening chapter for the fifth time. This time I think I've got it right.

So this is a short intro to the site. I hope to post more on Bulinnarm, its history, major characters, possibly maps, and other background bits.