Between a very busy time at my day job, and a bout of illness over the last week, I’m feeling under the gun to get anything creative finished this month. I think I have a couple of milestones that are feasible to reach in the next nine days, but a lot depends on whether I can carve out enough time.
The first milestone is to finish rewriting a big section of Architect of Worlds, reworking the process of placing planets in a star system under development. We’re talking about what is now Steps Nine through Twelve, although I’m breaking up a few of those and the final result will be Steps Nine through Fifteen instead. That’s making decent progress. I’m currently working Step Fourteen (determining the mass of planets) and once that’s finished the last step is almost a cut-and-paste from the previous draft. I think that’s going to come out to be about 7,000 words of reworked material – no examples, no modeling notes, just the bare sequence – but I think that will be one part of the release this month for my patrons and beta readers.
The other item is probably going to be a few new chapters of Twice-Crowned, set after Alexandra arrives in Athens as a penniless exile for the first time. I actually wrote this next section a couple of years ago, so it’s just going to need a once-over and a coat of polish. That should come to about 13,000 words. I think that will be easy enough to get ready by month’s end.
So, in all, we’re talking about 20,000 words of extensively reworked or completely new material. Kind of a patchwork for my patrons for this month, but enough to justify making the combination a charged reward.
I’m also plowing through a new indie novel for review, and with luck that will be done by the end of the month too.
Now, if I can just get all that done and juggle a rather terrifying number of projects for the office, all at once . . .
The core of the Architect of Worlds design sequence is the series of steps in which the user places planets in orbit around a given star. Right now, that’s Steps Nine through Twelve:
Step Nine: Structure of Protoplanetary Disk
Step Ten: Outer Planetary System
Step Eleven: Inner Planetary System
Step Twelve: Eccentricity of Planetary Orbits
This is the section of the design sequence that’s been rewritten the most times, largely driven by the discovery of new exoplanets or new planetary systems in formation over the past few years. It works . . . but it doesn’t work well. Frankly, it’s a mess, it requires a lot of complicated and fiddly special cases, and I’m told it’s a bear to try to automate.
I’ve been thinking about doing yet another rewrite, as part of the process of producing a fully integrated draft of the book for the first time.
Now, as often happens, this gets into a peculiarity of my design process. There are times when I go for days or even weeks without writing a single word on a given project, because I’m chewing on some thorny problem. In a novel, it might be a bit of plot or character development that isn’t coming clear. In a game design, it’s a mechanic or subsystem that doesn’t want to work the way I would like. In either case, I do a convincing imitation of a writer who’s creatively blocked – but that’s not really the case. What’s really happening is that my brain is mulling over the problem with every spare cycle. Eventually, usually at the subconscious level, some inspiration comes along and I see a way forward.
I’m not quite at that point with this piece of Architect, but I think I’m getting close.
The way the system works now, you start by sketching out the mass and structure of the protoplanetary disk. Then you place planets roughly in the order in which they form – gas giants due to disk instability first, then gas giants due to rapid accretion, then rocky terrestrial worlds in the inner system. The results of each step can affect the parameters of the next, of course. That means lots of special cases where you have to put constraints on a mechanic, or where you have to fiddle with the outcome to make it fit.
This gets particularly annoying when the mechanics for planetary migration (i.e., movement inward or outward across the disk during formation) interact with the final placement of planetary orbits. Easy to get a case where you’re placing planets later in the process and you get an arrangement that interferes with planets you placed earlier on. Annoying.
So it occurred to me, possibly some night recently while I was drifting off to sleep, that I could just turn the whole process on its head. Instead of placing the young planets and then using a bunch of rules to shift them around due to disk migration and other factors, why not just do something like the following:
Determine with a few random numbers and table lookups how many planets survive the formation process in each of the three categories (disk-instability gas giants, rapid-accretion gas giants, rocky terrestrials). Assume these three categories of planets always fall in that order, outer orbits to inner.
Determine the orbital radii of the innermost planet and the outermost planet.
Space all the other planetary orbits more or less evenly in between, using a procedure that won’t generate impossible cases that have to be fixed.
Then, and only then, generate the masses of each planet.
One of the neat features of a system like this is that it can take into account things like disk migration and a Grand Tack for the system’s largest gas giant, without having to explicitly recapitulate all that evolution. If there aren’t any rocky terrestrials, that must mean that your innermost rapid-accretion gas giant migrated inward and stayed close to its primary, a “hot Jupiter.” If there are several rocky terrestrials, then that gas giant either didn’t migrate in very far, or it got pulled back outward by a Grand Tack. Done – no need to work through a several-step process, full of exceptions and special cases, to capture all the possibilities.
Hopefully this will be quite a bit easier to use. Ought to be a lot easier to automate, too. I can already hear K. Nakamura cheering, off in the distance.
I’m not quite ready to start rewriting this section of the sequence – I still need to work through some of the implications in my head first – but I might start taking a crack at it within a few days. If it works out, that will be a big step toward having a complete version 1.0 draft of the whole book that I’d be willing to share with my beta readers and patrons. Stay tuned.
September was mostly about getting more incremental work done on Architect of Worlds, although I also spent a few hours updating some of the research and background for my Danassos setting. My patrons got some of that as a free update, and there wasn’t any charged release for September.
The biggest holdup for Architect is that I’m struggling with some of the intermediate steps in the design sequence – the ones where a planetary system is laid out. Every day I think I get a little closer to a workable overhaul of those guidelines, but it’s a slow process.
As before, if I can get that stumbling block dealt with, and I can get the Architect draft as a whole into some kind of semi-polished condition, then I may release that in some form in October. I may also spend a few hours this month writing a few new chapters for Twice-Crowned.
The planning schedule for this month, pretty much the same as last month:
Top Priority:
Architect of Worlds: Continue work on preparing a complete draft of the book for eventual layout and publication.
Second Priority:
Danassos: Continue work on the new rough draft of the novel Twice-Crowned.
Human Destiny: Continue compiling material for the eventual Atlas of the Human Protectorate.
Human Destiny: Design additional new rules systems for the Player’s Guide and add these to the interim draft.
Human Destiny: Begin work on a new Aminata Ndoye story, set during her first year at the Interstellar Service academy.
Back Burner:
Human Destiny: Finish the novelette “Remnants” for eventual collection and publication.
Krava’s Legend: Review and possibly rewrite the existing partial draft of The Sunlit Lands, and write a few new chapters.
Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller (or Cepheus Engine).
Work on Architect of Worlds proceeds at a deliberate pace – I’ve made a bunch of incremental changes to the draft, and left myself notes for sections that need additional content. Every day I work on that feels like it gets me a few more meters toward a set of goal-posts that keep receding into the distance.
The biggest holdup there is that I’m trying to redesign Steps Nine through Eleven of the design sequence. That is, starting with the structure of the protoplanetary disk, then figuring out how the planets form, how they migrate across the disk, and how they end up being arranged in a stable final situation. That’s a part of the design sequence that has gotten tweaked and adjusted many times, responding to observed exoplanetary systems in the real world and changes in the best available theory. Honestly, the current state of that piece of the sequence is an enormous kludge and I can’t help thinking that there’s a better way to do it, more streamlined and yet at least as good at reflecting all the diversity we’re seeing in exoplanets.
The upshot of all this is that the integrated draft is not going to be ready to share with the audience in September. There will therefore be no paid release for my patrons this month, and we’ll see how October goes.
I did share a freebie with my patrons earlier this evening – an update to my alternate-history timeline for the Danassos setting, incorporating the results of a bunch of tabletop simulations I’ve been running over the last few months. That’s probably reached a stopping point for the foreseeable future, so hopefully more time and brain-cycles for me to work on Architect over the next few weeks.
Alexander Putting his Seal Ring over Hephaistion’s Lips, by Johann Heinrich Tischbein (1781)
While I slog through the Architect of Worlds draft, I’m still thinking about Hellenic alternate histories for my Danassos setting.
One of the most popular premises for a Hellenistic AH is the one in which Alexander the Great lives longer, perhaps long enough to see a legitimate heir born and recognized. Lots of people have played with that one . . . but I think I’ve found another one that’s just as interesting.
Suppose Hephaistion had lived longer?
Hephaistion, son of Amyntor, was Alexander’s closest friend and companion from boyhood, possibly his lover, certainly one of his most talented officers. Alexander trusted Hephaistion absolutely and without reservation – and that trust was apparently well-earned.
Hephaistion wasn’t just lucky enough to strike up a close relationship with his king. He was a competent diplomat and battlefield officer in his own right, often entrusted with important missions. He was apparently quite intelligent, patronizing the arts, maintaining his own years-long correspondence with Aristotle. With one or two exceptions, he got along well with his colleagues on Alexander’s staff. Most importantly, he understood Alexander – his ambitions, his ideas about building and governing a world-empire, his desire to build bridges between the Hellenic and Persian worlds. He was well-respected both among Makedonians and among Persians.
When Hephaistion died in 324 BCE, possibly due to complications of a bout of typhoid fever, it just about unhinged Alexander. The king lived only another eight months afterward, and it seems that the loss of his life-long companion had robbed him of something vital. When Alexander died in turn, at Babylon, he had made no provision for a regency or succession. That omission led the Makedonians to revert to their historical pattern of behavior, fighting ruthlessly over the throne, only this time on a much grander scale than before. The result was the complete extinction of Alexander’s royal line, and the permanent division of his empire. In the end, while Hellenistic culture came into its own, it was the rival empires of Rome and Parthia that inherited Alexander’s political ambitions.
If Hephaistion had survived to a decent age, it might not have added too many years to Alexander’s tally. By the time of his arrival in Babylon, Alexander had pretty thoroughly burned himself out and wrecked his physical health. Yet if Hephaistion had survived his king, there would have been no question of who would serve as Regent. He would also have been a competent guardian and foster father for Alexander’s son by Roxane. Doubtless others among Alexander’s generals would still have reached for their own ambitions, hoping to unseat Hephaistion or carve out their own kingdoms, but the imperial structure would have started out on a much sounder footing. It’s possible that Alexander’s empire would have remained intact for at least another generation.
This has possibilities – not least because I’m not aware of anyone else who has run with this specific premise. I’m going to tinker with the idea as time allows.
Once again, the planning for this month is likely to be pretty straightforward.
In August, I got some incremental work done on Architect of Worlds, and I also finished writing the first section of my Hellenic-alternate-history-fantasy novel Twice-Crowned. That last went out to my patrons and readers about mid-month.
In September, I think those two projects are going to be reversed in priority. I’m planning to spend the bulk of this month working on the draft of Architect of Worlds, and maybe making a little incremental progress on Twice-Crowned and the Danassos setting in general.
In particular, I think I’m going to be focusing on three tasks for Architect:
Rationalizing the mathematical formulae throughout, so I’m using consistent variable names and the format of the formulae is consistent.
Making sure each step in the design sequences has a “modeling notes” section, to point readers toward some of the scientific literature if they want to investigate further.
Polishing the steps in the design sequence that involve placing planets in their orbits – I’m still not entirely happy with how this works, and there may be ways to streamline the process.
If I can get the Architect of Worlds draft into some kind of polished form by the end of this month, and there’s enough genuinely new material in there, then that may be a charged release for my patrons. The other option, if the amount of new material isn’t extensive enough, is to make it a free update. We’ll see how things go.
The planning schedule for this month:
Top Priority:
Architect of Worlds: Continue work on preparing a complete draft of the book for eventual layout and publication.
Second Priority:
Danassos: Continue work on the new rough draft of the novel Twice-Crowned.
Human Destiny: Continue compiling material for the eventual Atlas of the Human Protectorate.
Human Destiny: Design additional new rules systems for the Player’s Guide and add these to the interim draft.
Human Destiny: Begin work on a new Aminata Ndoye story, set during her first year at the Interstellar Service academy.
Back Burner:
Human Destiny: Finish the novelette “Remnants” for eventual collection and publication.
Krava’s Legend: Review and possibly rewrite the existing partial draft of The Sunlit Lands, and write a few new chapters.
Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller (or Cepheus Engine).
Just a quick note, since we’re about at the mid-point for the month of August.
I’ve been concentrating on the working draft for Twice-Crowned, and that’s making decent progress. I’m on Chapter Nine, which should be the last chapter of Act One of the novel. A couple thousand words and I’ll hit that milestone, probably later this week. Once I’ve done that, I think I’ll release the completed portion of the draft as this month’s charged release for my patrons.
I have a bunch of text already written for the beginning of Act Two, from the last time I attempted to write this story. With minimal work, that should drop right into the working draft. I may spend a little time in what’s left of August working on that.
Meanwhile, I think Architect of Worlds is going to move to the front burner once Twice-Crowned has hit that milestone. I’ve been working, off and on, to polish up the first complete draft of Architect, and I’m thinking that a few weeks of concentrated effort will get that into good enough shape that I’d be willing to share it with my patrons. At that point, the project will move to final development, editing, and layout for production. Probably won’t get there before the end of August, but it ought to be doable for sometime in September. I’ll decide whether that’s a charged release or a free update once I see just how much genuinely new material is in the draft.
The image for this post, by the way, is a painting out of the Neo-Classicist school, representing a young woman from the Roman town of Pompeii. On the other hand, she looks so much like my mind’s-eye image of Alexandra, the protagonist of Twice-Crowned, that I’ve grabbed a copy of the painting as a visual reference. For another approach to the character (especially for GURPS and other RPG fans), have a look at this post from 2018.
This is going to be an unusually short monthly planning message!
July worked out pretty much as I expected:
I made quite a bit of incremental progress on the first complete Architect of Worlds draft, in that I assembled that first complete draft and began going through to polish and tighten up the text.
I also made good progress on the new rough draft for the novel Twice-Crowned. I’m up to about the middle of Chapter Six and have about 16000 words down as of this moment.
In neither case, though, did I reach a significant milestone that would have merited a big release for my patrons and readers. So aside from a couple of small items and an about-weekly status report, you folks didn’t hear much from me in July.
August is going to be much the same, although I’m a little more confident that one or both of those projects will generate something that I can release for my patrons. So here’s the planning schedule for this month:
Top Priority:
Architect of Worlds: Continue work on preparing a complete draft of the book for eventual layout and publication.
Danassos: Continue work on the new rough draft of the novel Twice-Crowned.
Second Priority:
Human Destiny: Continue compiling material for the eventual Atlas of the Human Protectorate.
Human Destiny: Design additional new rules systems for the Player’s Guide and add these to the interim draft.
Human Destiny: Begin work on a new Aminata Ndoye story, set during her first year at the Interstellar Service academy.
Back Burner:
Human Destiny: Finish the novelette “Remnants” for eventual collection and publication.
Krava’s Legend: Review and possibly rewrite the existing partial draft of The Sunlit Lands, and write a few new chapters.
Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller (or Cepheus Engine).
So, in other words, a set of priorities pretty much identical to those of last month. Right now, I’m reasonably sure I’ll be able to release Act I of Twice-Crowned as a charged release for my patrons (at least 25000 words of fiction), and I may have a complete draft of Architect of Worlds that’s coherent enough to share, but we’ll see how the month goes.
The month of July is moving along more or less as I expected at the beginning. I’m making slow, incremental progress on both the first complete draft of Architect of Worlds, and on a first working draft of the novel Twice-Crowned. It’s actually been a productive month – I’ve managed to carry out at least a little forward motion almost every day.
By the nature of both projects, though, I have not really gotten to a point where there’s a big chunk of new material for me to release to my patrons and readers. Next month, more likely, but July is looking like a month without any big milestones.
This is to inform everyone, then, that there will be no charged release for my patrons in the month of July. I’m going to concentrate on putting the first coat of polish on Architect of Worlds and getting within striking distance of finishing Act I of Twice-Crowned. I should also have the month’s book review ready within the next week or so. Then we’ll see how the month of August shapes up.
Aside from working on Architect of Worlds as time permits, I’ve also been working on a first draft of the novel Twice-Crowned. That’s making enough good forward progress that I’m increasingly comfortable calling it my primary literary project at the moment. If you check out the sidebar on this site, you’ll notice that I’ve updated my “In Progress” widget to indicate where I am on word count for that. I’ll keep that up to date as I work, so you can get a sense for how well that project is going over the next few months.
