The upshot right now of this is that in going much deeper into the construction and function and crewing of a ram I have discovered that some of the information about gastrines and rams given in MBT is now revised. I must confess myself a tad perplexed: how am I to proceed?
The normal process is to present your world full-formed upon the world, an unshakable rock of continuity and consistency. Yet here I am tweaking and changing and - more properly - refining ideas all the time, as I have always done.
What concerns us here are gastrines and just how it is that they work. Here are the variations:
OLD IDEA AS PRESENTED IN MBT ~
- dog box & gears
- 5-20 year life span
- jointed leavers everywhere
- put into the vessel individually
NEW IDEA AS I WORK IT THROUGH MORE ~
- muscles work straight to screw; "gearing" is simply the amount of effort gastrines put in and the number of gastrines put to the screw
- 30-50 year life span - I like the idea of them living as long as a generation of vinegars (& notwithstanding death due to sickness or injury or being eaten whole and entire by a ravening kraulschwimmen)
- straight wooden beams and levers
- grown within the vessel (though this one I am not so sure about)
My thoughts are that none of this actually varies things too much, that the previous information can be easily incorporated into the revisions and vice versa - well that is what I hope anyway... Is it appropriate to simply alter things as I go and expect you all to just keep up? Is it actually a good thing for the whole process to be evolving right out there in publicland?
Where I will draw a line is at the total reversal of an idea: what I intend is only the kind of fluctuation that will occur as a I think an idea through all the more deeply, and discover some real-world fact that adds to the whole.
So, there, I am back, fretful as ever - if anyone is still reading :/
Most earnest mae culpa for so long a silence.
Oh, and just to speak into any suspense, my current project is (at this stage anyways) a new story with different characters set in HIR 1602 - the very next year after MBT. Events in MBT have an affect on it, are part of its own motion - because, verily, they are events more particularly in the Half-Continent - but it is its own tale.
Thank you for all your - well, "suggestions" is to little a word for the depth and passion of your thoughts but it will have to do... maybe "advice"? - it helps a whole heck of a lot, even if I seem to be going in some other direction, your thoughts and ideas go with me all the same.
Final inkling: I reckon this will be a stand alone story - no multiple volumes...
OK, this one really is the last thoughts: Rossamünd's story does go on, whether a write about it or not, so let your minds run free with that one; & Europe is indeed too "cool" to let go, but I reckon I need time to ponder just how to tell about her next... & I reckon, though I seem to "avoid" or digress for now, that the Half-Continent might indeed be working up to some kind of dissolution, though do not mistake the movements in one small part of the Sundergird (as seen in MBT) to equal a threat to the greater part of it - just see how small an area we cover in the story so far; I reckon folks in Hamlin or Gottingen could not give two hoots what happens in Brandenbrass (bar the impact on trade, I suppose.. hmmm...)
It must be said though that cataclysmic dissolution is a bit of a genre cliche, too, and though I keep finding myself in my inexperience committing them , I am trying not to do so, and all conquering baddies threatening the existence of everything seems an obvious one to avoid. The original premise of the Half-Continent was that the existing relationships were/are enough to generate stories without then needing to break the idea.
Apart from a certain LoTR, the few genre novels i have read always seemed their best at the start with the original concept of the world, before everything gets broken - it was where I wanted to stay, and I haven't and continue to put all this work into figuring just how the H-c works "now" to bust it all up again. That said, I do think there does need to be some manner of larger and obvious conflict... hmmm.
...& Aphrodine, expect to find "rumsibol" in some form in the next book too, if i may, simply brilliant!
