Going Forward into the New Year

 A few things going forward into the New Year:

 The Edited & Revised version of Book I, ‘Chronicles of Ardis: Concordance,’ along with Books II (Reckonings,) III (Convergence,) & IV (Dark Winter,) were submitted to the editor of Battlefield Press in March. Aside from a conversation revision in Book IV and a few possible name changes in Book I, I’m satisfied with what’s been written. Hopefully, even more importantly, the readers will be too!

 Once the Crowdsource Campaign begins, I’ll share it in every place possible/permissible, dotting my I’s and crossing my T’s to make sure it’s successful. Accordingly, I have a write-up on Ardan Physiology that’s 85-90% finished that I’ll post here after the books have been officially published.

 Book V’s subtitle will be called Counterpoint. The book will take place 1-2 years after the events of Book IV. I had considered a more linear progression, having things occur through the Ardan year, but felt a time jump would work better. I’ll be taking my time establishing characters, placenames, etc… and possibly be done with the draft by the year’s end.

 Beyond this, I’ve little else to work on. Going forward I’ve some strong ideas for Book VI and one or two for Book VII, I think Book VII will be fun, and IX, X, and XI will probably be fun to write, with the endgame in mind for the last book. Even though I’ve told people I’m going for 11 books, truthfully if I’m sane enough I’d love to do much, much more for this series. 

Revisiting the Map of the Planet

 As I was writing Book I between 2013-2015, I happened upon a planetary map generator that by serendipity gave me the configuration I wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to properly configure it, leaving me with a few inconsistencies, best cleared up by narration. Thankfully, I also have both a Mercator and a rotating version, allowing me to snag shots of locations of interest.

For a bit of explanation, the continents are Teladrin, Shadrelin, & Degna. Gaudna is a combination of two Subcontinents, Alden-Gaudna and Derren-Gaudna. Tifaeanyd (classified on the Mercator map as a protectorate) is part of the Sinseran Empire. Geologically, Shadrelin is rifting away from Teladrin,  Degna is moving southward, and Gaudna northward. Much of this, is in Book I, which was published back in 2017. 

Stellar System & Moon Update; Months of the Year

 Whether this is the last time I do this, I can’t confirm. However, I am far more satisfied with the changes below. Adjustments were done using a slightly modified G5V star, with the following parameters: Mass: 0.98, Radius: 0.989, Luminosity: .90, Temperature: 5,660K. From what I could determine with an online calculator, its lifespan is roughly 10.518 billion years.

 Finding a Planet Habitability Calculator, the next two images show Ardis, followed by Liadrel's location within their star’s habitable zone. Interestingly enough, when Liadrel was plotted, it fits comfortably within the Optimistic Habitable Zone, meaning there is potential for habitability, albeit not humanoid life. I’d already conceived of something akin to life adapted to deserts, possibly discovered in a much later book, of course…

 As referenced by the original novel, Ardis was orbited by two moons. However, I had an orbital resonance issue and felt it could be resolved with the addition of a final natural satellite. The reason behind this stemmed from the nature of Io’s vulcanism as Nersis too is a volcanic moon. Jupiter's immense gravity tugs on and flexes the satellite. And though this plays a significant role, it isn’t the only factor. The other factor is that there is a 1:2:4 Laplace resonance between Ganymede, Europa, and Io. As Jupiter tugs, they too exert their gravitational influence, making Io unable to settle in its orbit causing tidal heating and friction, resulting in the geologic activity we see today. So too is Nersis in an identical resonance orbit with its sister moons. Also, the viewing angles are odd, mainly because Nersis and Kesis seem to be in the middle.

 The last image is the months of the year. Originally, there were 14, but I had an issue concerning Total Solar Intensity. While Ardis was well within Dorastis’s Habitable Zone, I judged the light reaching it too dim, 83%, versus the revision of 91.92%. There’s also the fact that Dorastis is 10% dimmer than Sol (our sun.) To solve my problem, I changed its orbital period from 420 to 393 days, dropping its calendar year to 13 months. Ardis is cooler than Earth. The last time I ran the numbers it was: 48F (8.89C) vs. 59F(15C).

All values found are as accurate as I could make them. If there’s something incorrect, please let me know, WITH works cited.  

                                                            

They’re Done and Sent

Back in September I finished my modified-rough draft of Book IV and sent a request for resubmission for two reasons. First, and most obvious was that I wanted to include Book IV in with the other three. Second, since the last submission I had found multiple errors and mistakes littering what I had sent in, and this to me was unforgivable. I knew I couldn’t account for and correct every single error in the document, but I could reduce their frequency.

 My publisher replied back with ‘resubmit at my leisure.’  

 Putting aside Book IV, I went through the revised version of Book I (originally published around 2017), Book II, & Book III combing through them for any issues, cleaning up as much dialogue and grammatical mistakes as I could find, and expanding narration in places that needed it. This was especially the case for Book I, which was originally written with word 2007; a combination of the latest Word Software + Grammarly (which isn’t perfect, but it helps), allowed me to clean up over 2,500 issues, errors, and mistakes since its first publication.

 Book III had a chapter deleted because I decided it needed 21, instead of 18 chapters a couple of months ago. The last four chapters were too densely packed, and I was dissatisfied with the ending. Unfortunately, I did this with sleep deprivation creeping up and chapters 19&20 were identical. Before sending it off, I had this hunch that something was wrong, looked back, and was correct in my assumptions.

 Book IV had already received a similar treatment as I edited the work while I was writing it. It was just a matter of going through it with the same tools again and then cleaning up dialogue and narration where I found an issue.  

 Placing everything into a single document, from the first title page to the last cover blurb gave me 621 pages and 366,040 words. What comes next with them is of course… wait. They’re sent off, with nothing more to add or take away. Unless there’s some kind of issue that truly calls my attention from the publisher, I’m not touching them. What will likely take place is that they’ll be looked over, page formatted, finalized, and a Crowdsourced Campaign will take place.

 I’ve no plans to begin Book V until late Summer/early Fall, which will be subtitled: Counterpoint.

 The only other thing for me to do is to update the outdated Stellar System data further down the blog, along with several other things that likely need a good update. And as things move closer to publication, drop the cover blurbs. But… there you go!