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I’m happy to report that I’ve finished the Closed Door Draft one day ahead of schedule. The file is currently at 77 and 1/4 K in length, and despite having some extra holes that I’ve found along the way, I’ve taken care of all the original cards in the plot deck. I’ll fill in these additional pieces as I work on the text I’ve already got in the second door draft. (or Open Door, where I work the storyline into a coherent and readable story. As many of you know, the first draft of everything is utter crap. It requires at least three to make it look at least presentable) This will come later on this year, but not before I start work on the logo and the web site I’ll have for this book.

As well as deal with a problem that needs to be solved as soon as I can: Blood and Metal began as a fanfiction set in the well-loved Sonic the Hedgehod Saturday Morning cartoon (SatAm, as the Sonic fans call it). While I have done well in replacing most of the Sonic characters with original characters, there are two items that still have the Sonic references that are used as placeholders until I can come up with a new name. For example, the planet SatAM takes place in is called Mobius. In Blood and Metal, I worked on a new name for the planet. I first came up with Malta until I realized that it’s a country on earth, and someone else suggested that I mispell it into Maatla, it’s current name.

The two remaining placeholders have to do with the Kingdom that most of the story takes place in–Knothole–and it’s original monarch that sent Eric there to send a message to Sarah–King Acorn Knothole. In fact, Knothole became a clan name for the rulers of this kingdom, and I don’t know if I’d keep or change that. I’ll be putting up a discription of both town and monarch in later posts and ask for suggestions for better names.

But now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to shut down for a while and rest up a bit. I’m just glad I got to this point in time.

I remember telling someone that I’ve been interviewed by someone, and now that it’s done and the result is posted online at this link: http://audobonbridge.tripod.com/toontown/inter.html

I’m giving the interviewer props because he showed the one thing that would be missing in most people dropping out of nowhere and talking to me: Civility. As he said at the end of the page, I’m not that hard to talk to. Just don’t be an asshole. You don’t even have to be a butt-kisser, and I strongly suggest that you don’t; I’d rather have be constantly trolled than have someone stick their noses up my butt, thank you so much. I just want people to be honest, and yes civil. That’s the best way for you to get your point across to me.

By the end of my visit to Ivalice in December, I found out something that does help me out with ironing out the storyline and getting the writing back on track.  By moving the final confrontation between Eric and Nicolas up a bit, in the ice age part while Eric is a robian, I was able to trim just about 40 cards from the deck creating a streamlined story which I feel needed at any stage in writing any book.

Now I’m back from the holidays and that I’m less than 30 days to go, I can put the nose to that grindstone:

79 cards left in the deck, 50.9K Length in the file, and 30 days remaining.