The April Fool's that went awry

Well, it went mostly ignored. I posted the first three pages of The Honored as a trailer saying "coming soon" and "A story SEVEN years in the making". After midnight, I posted a reply saying "April Fool's" and that the only non-truths in the trailer were the words "soon" and "SEVEN". It's not finished yet, so it will not be "soon" and will likely be closer to EIGHT years in the making by the time I'm done.

Still, I thought the graphic deaths of Kira and Bashir (not a spoiler anymore because I posted the trailer) might get some kind of reaction. I got one reaction from a beta reader saying I was evil. :-D Why yes, so nice of you to notice! I got another one after pointing out to trailer to someone on IM. She said it was "Cruel and Unusual". :-D And then today, a new ASCer looked it up and is now trying valiantly to wait patiently for me to finish it.

The good news is that I'm getting back into the story! I've just finished going back through the first chapter to update it (Kira is a Colonel now, for example) and to check for errors and inconsistencies with previous stories and the show. Now I'm ready for the second chapter. It's not finished yet, which means that once I'm through with the part that is already written, I'll be writing new stuff!

I can also say that the whole story takes place over about 1 week, Bajoran time. Generally speaking, a story that covers a longer period of time is a longer story. Oswiecim covered from early February to late March 1943 and took nearly 600 pages. Faith was about two weeks in the first part, perhaps two in the second part, and one in the third. And about the same length as Oswiecim. Healer, by contrast was a day or two, and is only ten pages long. Thus, I predict The Honored will be a novella, somewhere in the 150-300 page range. Of course, since it does deal mostly with just those two characters (with a few bits of home sprinkled here and there), it will spend more time per day than say, Oswiecim, which by necessity skipped whole days here and there. Thus, I can liken this one to the length of The Journey which covers a similar amount of time and goes through every single day, though not necessarily hour for hour.

To summarize that very rambly paragraph: It shouldn't take as long to write as Faith!

And if you're looking for that trailer, go to www.deja.com and do a search for my name in the alt.startrek.creative newsgroup between, say, March 30a nd April 3, 2004.

Status of Stories

• The Honored: Finished going over chapter 1. Moving on to Chapter 2.
  
• Still considering picking up Purgatory on my own or in conjunction with Valerie Shearer.