Every step of the way, each new card spread is pointing directions for the story and revealing the plot. Little by little I get more ideas for who these characters are and what they've done before, are doing now, and will be doing as the plot progresses.

As usual, though, sometimes it's tricky to tell exactly what character is supposed to appear in a scene.

At first glance, this chapter's spread appears to be one of those times.

1. Seven of Swords (inverted)
2. The Hanged Man
3. Strength
4. The Sun (Inverted)
5. Wheel of Fortune (inverted)
6. Knight of Swords
7. King of Shields (inverted)
8. The Universe
9. King of Swords
10. Six of Shields (inverted)

No matter what, there's some interesting progressions--especially since I'm using the Celtic Cross and Staff spread (which, as time goes on, I'm thinking may not be the best spread to use for this sort of exercise... at least not in the general chapter plotting area).Read more

OK, finally got to just over my minimum for Chapter 4. That only leaves me about, oh, 10,000 words behind (give or take a thousand). Still better than previous years, though. I'm up to just over 7,000--which puts me not too far away from the most I think I ever managed to crank out during a NaNoWriMo.

So, not bad at all, actually, when put in context. :)

Counting these blog entries, I'm over 10K words.

Anyway...

In this past word dump, I seem to have introduced one of my "go to" background groups: a still kind of mysterious terrorist organization. They first appeared in my writing years ago in a story set in the far-flung future where they were greatly opposed to humans leaving the planet (or something along those lines... never did finish that story).

Based on some other bits that have come to light as the words pour from my fingers, it seems they may know about some things that most people in the world do not... and things that our main characters are going to be discovering (or, in at least two cases, re-discovering).

Only two chapters left in this section of the book. Which should work out pretty well as I've got one more main character to introduce and then I have to bring them all together so the real story can get started.Read more

OK, not even 800 words for the weekend. This is bad. But I acomplished some other things, so that is good.

I did let myself be distracted by an interesting idea. See, this year I'm writing this more or less post by post in a quick Drupal site I set up. (I set up Drupal sites all the damn time for work, so it's no problem to throw together something quick for personal use.) At least, the original idea was for it to be a quick and simple site. Just a blog and the story.

That idea lasted until I got sick of flipping back through the blog or story posts to find character, business and other names and facts. So I've come up with a set of content types that will interrelate and keep track of a number of things.

First and foremost, I'm going to have a full listing of every character that gets introduced and reference the story posts they appear in. Same for businesses or organizations.

Then there will be a running list of annotated reference links that will generate both from blog posts and in-story citations (a real benefit of writing in a "live" environment is the ability to link what may be esoteric information--like acronyms or historical references--to deeper information on other parts of the Web, giving the reader a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the writing).Read more

Static jumped across the heads-up display as explosion hit. Captain Solomon Mercado gritted his teeth, tightened his grip, and fought the force of the blast. He could hear the power plant kick in to overdrive and feel the shudder of the stabilizers. Something popped, without checking the now glitchy HUD, he was pretty sure it was one of the gyros. Maintaining balance from here on out would be difficult.

He twisted the control stick and refocused himself. There was a slight coppery taste and electric charge rolling across his tongue. He knew the human-machine interface was on the verge of overloading but there was no way he could release the manual controls long enough to readjust anything. Pain had always been part of the job, he just hoped it wouldn't spark this time.

In front of him the smoke began to clear as a rain of blasted rock and dirt skittered across the viewport. A quick visual assessment showed him that he arms of the thirty foot tall war machine he was riding were still intact. The fact that he was still upright spoke well of the status of the legs. Swiveling the body, he turned to face the automated turret that had unleashed the volley of missiles at him. A quick squeeze of the trigger--even with the HUD barely functional--turned it into a smoldering heap of slag as a few hundred incendiary rounds flew from the vehicle's shoulder cannon.Read more

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