Plotting Progress

Howdy Y'All!

This update, I would say, is long overdue.

Plotting on Bodacious Creed is going great!  I've done a lot of development on the main characters and setting, and have finished about a third of the plot outline.  I suspect it's going to be split into three parts, and Part 1 is finished.  It could end up being four.  We'll see.  It looks like Part 1 will basically be the origin story, with the rest covering some strange shit happening in Santa Cruz, California, in 1862, in the Creedverse.

See, I was born in and grew up in Santa Cruz, California, so it makes sense to me to set the story there.  I'll be doing research on what things were like at the time, but expect this alternate city to be thriving, whaver the real place was like at the time.  Alternate realities, especially those with a significant difference, like advanced steampunk technology, tend to be different in other major ways.  It's the butterfly effect, the idea that one thing changes everything.

On the Facebook fan page, a member recently posted that I shouldn't have zombie pigs.  Someone else said that I should have zombie cows, and I responded, essentially, "What use would anyone have for zombie pigs or cows?"  My uncle made the astute observation, "That calls into question how zombies are made in this world."  If you read through the basic information about the demo reel and the book though, you'll have a good idea about that.  So, while I certainly consider the undead in Bodacious Creed a breed of zombie, some with characteristics very close to your traditional shambling corpses, they are also their own thing.

So, what other news?  Plotting, check.  Characterization, check.  Setting development, which includes research and imagination, check.

Ah, yes.  It's important for me to finish up that developement by November 1 (making the official due date October 31... that's cool), so that I write the first draft for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)!  I already have a writing buddy, another author I've known for years, who has done the competition, and finished it, a bunch of times.  Six, I think she said.  If you are doing NaNoWriMo, too, send me a message!  I'd be happy to have more buddies for support.

Hopefully I'll be able to write at least half of the draft over that month.  If not, no worries, I'll get it done.  I currently make my living writing articles during the day.  I may even have another job by the start of NaNo, and I am a single dad.  I will, of course, make time for the novel.  I've even quit playing MMO's (I used to play WoW with a great group of friends) to make sure I have time for this, and my art.

Right, art!  I am a 3D modeler, after all, with an MFA in the stuff.  This field is pretty competitive, and was hit by the recession right around when I graduated in December, 2011.  While I think my demo reel is pretty good, I'm determined to keep making models and to keep improving my work.  Since I have Bodacious Creed on the brain, I'm making related 3D models.  Right now, I'm modeling one of the characters named by a high-level backer to the Kickstarter project.  Rather than use a male base mesh I had alread created, I made a new one from scratch, to brush up on the techniques.  I'm really happy with it.  I've started the sculpting, and plan to get it to a nice high level of detail.  I've decided not to texture these new models, at least, not right now, in order to really focus on the modeling.  They will have good UV maps, though, so that I can texture them when I like.

So, that's a lot of Creedverse stuff going on!

And with that written, time to get back to my article writing.  Getting paid is good.  And when the novel comes out next August, I hope everyone who enjoys it will share the news with others.  I would so love to make my writing money through my fiction!