Post # 233 October 19 2020 “The New Farpool Stories Are Coming!” Any time I write a book-length work, you can be sure months and sometimes years of planning went into it. While I pin down final details of my upcoming novel The Eureka Gambit (which I start writing on 2 November and which should be available for download in late spring 2021), I’m already into planning for what comes next. In a few words…more Farpool stories. To date, there are 6 Farpool novels, which I’ve listed below; all are available for download from Smashwords.com or other fine ebook retailers: The Farpool The Farpool: Marauders of Seome The Farpool: Exodus The Farpool: Convergence The Farpool: Union As a series, I have previously described The Farpool Stories this way: Chase Meyer and Angie Gilliam seem like normal teenagers…until a waterspout catapults them across the Galaxy to an ocean world called Seome. It’s a world with an intelligent marine civilization, but riven by conflict, host to a Uman base fighting a menace from deep space. Now Chase and Angie find themselves in the midst of an existential crisis. Chase wants to stay behind to work with his new–found Seomish friends, to help the Umans fight off their enemy before the Coethi attack again. But the challenge is this: the Umans are losing against the Coethi and the star-sun Sigma Albeth B is doomed to supernova, obliterating Seome and its ancient civilization. The only hope for the Seomish is mass emigration, through the Farpool, to the oceans of Earth. The decision Chase and Angie make may send them safely back through time and space to their home world. But that same decision may well doom their Seomish friends to complete annihilation at the hands of the Coethi. It will be the hardest decision Chase and Angie have ever made. I have in mind to continue this series with three new novels. Here’s what’s coming: The Farpool: Plague (much of Humanity lost to plague; Amphibs infect Man but survive and inherit most of human civilization, including leadership roles in many fields)(story told by Seomish/human Amphib historian Likto klu kel:Om’t) 2195 AD The Farpool: Diaspora (Amphibs and a few humans expand and settle the solar system; major base at Europa) 2200-2285 AD The Farpool: Destiny (Amphibs expand to and explore nearer star systems; encounter and battle Coethi; eventually, enter into a treaty with Coethi to stop conflict; galactic spheres of influence created; first extra-galactic expeditions planned with Coethi alliance and assistance) 2290-2345 AD To keep details straight with each new project, I always create a file called “Next Steps.” For my upcoming novel The Eureka Gambit, here’s that file: 1. Complete all Research Needs 2. Review (Read) all relevant background materials 3. Write character bios 4. Operation Titan tactical plan 5. Make a schematic of Soviet embassy layout 6. Expand outline to Chapter and Scene Details 7. Projected start date: 2 November 2020 8. Finish first draft: 9. Projected upload date: 10. Review and edit final 11. Spellcheck 12. Book descriptions 13. Tag lines 14. Word 97 version 15. Verify cover format USE JPEG! It’s sort of a checklist to make sure all bases are covered. To accomplish this with my proposed new Farpool stories, I’ve started this checklist below. I show this to give you an idea of what’s involved when I initiate and plan a book-length project. 1. Re-read all 6 original Farpool stories, to get my head back into this imaginary universe. 2. Create Chapter and Scene details (a scene and chapter outline) for each new story 3. Do my character bios for new characters. These come from what I call my List of Major Players. Will there be any holdover characters from earlier stories…I’ll have to decide that? 4. Identify and develop details of any new settings. For The Farpool: Diaspora and The Farpool: Destiny, I am proposing to send my Amphib hybrid human/Seomish people into space, a sort of alternate history of solar system exploration. I will probably need new settings and details for that. 5. One of the main reasons for item (1) above is continuity, something that writers of TV series know a lot about. What aspects of the original stories should I retain? What will be new? How should I evolve the stories from the old to the new and be logical and consistent? 6. Develop a timeline for the stories. You see some of that in the table above and I’ll have to dovetail that with the earlier stories, so that the new guys grow organically from the old. 7. Develop my own writing timeline. You see that, for me, planning and executing a novel is a somewhat lengthy and detailed process. I don’t believe I’ll be ready to begin any first drafts until next summer of 2021 at the earliest. With that kind of timeline, you should be able to look for the first of the new stories, The Farpool: Plague, toward the end of 2021. The next post to The Word Shed comes on October 26. See you then. Phil B.