One Year Galaxy Update

Broken Glass in Space HeaderThis afternoon the Memoir app alerted me to the fact that I announced to the world one year ago today (right here on my site) that I would be writing GALAXY. A year later, I still haven’t published anything, and I’ve only made a few blog updates about the story…but trust me, a lot as been done. So, here’s a progress report of the critical pieces that I have been working on over the past year. Today, there are 24,800 words written, and I still have a long way to go. I really look forward to getting this story out of my head and into books so that you can, one day, enjoy the scifi tale.

ProgressProgress Report

Writing Resources

  • Set up a significant library of resources and references in Evernote
  • There isn’t a lot of LGBT SciFi out there—and I want to be a part of this change. To that end, I established a simple rule from day one:
    • Relationships and sexuality, and gender shall not be of concern; same-sex and opposite sex relationships will be completely normal and natural, as well as queer transgendered people.
  • Established roles, other rules, and a framework for consistency and canon
  • Read books, listened to podcasts, and scoured the interwebs for countless articles on good, better, best science fiction.
  • Switched from IA Writer to Scrivener—which makes my life much easier
  • Wrote back stories that inform the present day, with some reaching as far back as 500 years (these do not count against the current word count)
  • Chose the theme song to the series, which I listen to regularly. It helps me get pumped up to write. Check it out: HYPERION, by Critical Mass from the album Apocalypse

Cartography

  • Galactic map creation and subsequent revisions—currently on version 5—which includes the things on the map (e.g. planets, stations) and the names of all the things on the map, including a few Easter eggs. See below for a snippet of each galaxy!
  • Created an entirely new hexa-grid system for the Galactic Map—giving me way more flexibility than initially expected

People, Places, and Things

  • Articulated the eleven galactic territories, their Royal families, their marriages and alliances, and their tensions
  • Figured out who’s shagging who
  • Created lists of naturally occurring objects in space, man-made objects, stations, and more
  • Created character profiles for the main characters identified thus far and their supporting characters
  • Articulated the key differences between raiders, pirates, and slavers (oh my!)
  • Created starship classes with various use cases
  • Created all the weapons classes with their various use cases (sorry, no light sabers)
  • Setup a dedicated Pinterest Board so that I can start tracking the various people, places, and things visually, and hopefully generate some excitement for this written work too (I did this for THE CLIMB too, which I plan to finished before GALAXY.)

Galactic Infrastructure

  • Created a new and logical science of galactic transportation, including the rules starships must follow and the drawbacks that can be exploited
  • Created a galactic monetary system (both legitimate and illegitimate)
  • Created a galactic calendaring and chronographic system
  • Created a galactic communications network

Galaxy Map Snippets — Version Comparisons to Date

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GALAXY © 2016 Damien Ledoux. All Rights Reserved.