The rough draft for Rich Man's War just broke 110,000 words tonight. Thought some folks might want to know.
It's a very rough draft. I'm gonna have to go through it again even before I put it in the hands of my trusty beta readers, so I'm not saying it'll be out next week or anything. (And yes, I have trusty beta readers... I hate to disappoint anyone who has or would have volunteered, but I'm much more comfortable with test readers when I can nag them for their opinions and input in person.)
This is the first large-scale space battle sequence that I've ever written, making all the other battles in Poor Man's Fight small by comparison. I realized, when I started out, that I'd better just figure out names for all the ships involved ahead of time even though not even half will be named in the final product, because having to stop and make up a new name whenever I needed one would be aggravating as all hell. And that meant coming up with a naming scheme for each individual type of ship.
I decided that all the corvettes on one side of this fight should be named after dog breeds. But even that isn't a random choice. Bulldog? Foxhound? Harrier? Excellent names for warships. Polish Lowland Sheepdog? Maybe not so much. :)
Thanks for the update! Hope we see the final product soon! As for the ship names, I would personally love to see a ship class named the Polish Lowland Sheepdog.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase you are looking for is Order of Battle. You could always make up names of old dead politicians to name them after too. Or do as the us does nowadays and don't even bother waiting for them to have the courtesy to die.
ReplyDeletesuper exited ever since i read poor mans fight i have been waiting for the sequel
ReplyDeleteI hope that one of the capital ships will be named the Alexander - because y'know, cameos and such :) And ship naming can be a real tough task, easier when following famous names (cough enterprise cough). In Freespace, ship types were named after mythological, er, entities, like Fenris- and Leviathan-class cruisers or the Orion-class destroyer - that being the terran ships, which showed inconsistencies in comparison to the vasudan ones, which were all named after things in the egyptian mythology.
ReplyDeleteAaaanyway, if you wanna name spaceships, why Not after birds of prey? Like goshawk, buzzard or falcon (sans millenium, wink wink, nudge nudge... Terrible pun).
At any rate, I'm certain it'll be great.
Thanks for the Update!
PS: Just realized that naming these things goshawk and buzzard sounds more pirate-y than military...
Hahaha, so who gets stuck with the corvettes named Chihuahua and Poodle? ;) Oh, and can't forget Shitzu!
ReplyDeleteshitzu would obviously be the ship Tanner is on because "yeah that's just his luck"
ReplyDeleteNot out next week.. so the week after?
ReplyDeleteI know, I'm terrible.
I was just on my way to write an angry comment pertaining to no new news on the RMW front when I saw this update. Work faster man, you got us hooked in the first place!
ReplyDeleteJoking aside, I will be really happy when the next book comes out, I think lots of people are itching to know what happens next.
Oh, BTW, St. Bernard is a wonderful name for your ship
Not next week.. but the week after?
ReplyDeleteHahaha, I make terrible jokes.
Well Polish Lowland Sheep dog would work if it was the POLSH. I am very exited for the release. Also I was very pleased to learn that Sgt. Jeanka( or however you spell it, I'm to lazy to look it up.) One of the things I thought about when I first finished Poor Man's War is how it would be interesting for Tanned to go back and talk to her about his experiences.
ReplyDeleteJaneka may be one of my favorite characters ever. (She's also based on a friend... who isn't the drill sergeant type, but she's still awesome.) Thing is, though, I just don't see Gunny Janeka as being a "listener" type, y'know?
DeleteTanner: God, it was so awful. So many people died. And I just keep thinking... for what? What's the point of it all?
Janeka: The point is SUCK IT UP AND GET BACK TO WORK, CRYBABY! YOUR EXISTENTIAL CRISIS BORES ME!
idk about that. i know your the one writing the character, and ultimately you decide how the characters take shape, but i feel Janeka has a lot more depth to character than that. and i feel that she really would listen as she appears to care deeply to those few she is close to like the chief. and it is evident in some of their more private interactions.
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ie. when tanner over hears her talk to the chief about him going back or when she reacts to someone laughing at an injured recruit. or more so in her interaction with tanner after their fight.
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she really cares for her recruits and she is only a hard ass with them because that is what they need in basic to set them up too survive also i think she would probably relate to a lot he is going through. and i do not feel anyone is born a bad ass so she probably asked the same questions or similar ones. last and maybe least i think out of all the recruits she is closest to tanner per the last of the spoilers i mentioned.
How about "Tatra" (Polish Tatra Sheepdog)? As one of your Polish fans, I would love to see that in your book :)
DeleteAs Sean said, you're the author Elliot and it's your book etc. etc. but as a reader I have to agree with Sean on how you've portrayed Janeka.. she seems alot more 'deep' then just being the mean ol' gunny from boot camp. That's how it comes across to me anyway, I actually thought at the end of the book "oh I can't wait for Tanner to bump into one of his old mentors again," I never even considered the possibility that wouldn't happen haha.
DeleteAlso to other readers- do you guys/girls think Tanner will end up getting mustang'd/commissioned? Or will the story take a different direction? I'm so excited to see how the story progresses in the next book!
Bah, I'm only kidding about Janeka.
DeleteMostly.
But she's absolutely part of the sequel.
Any chance you'll have the book up by the end of the month or no? So keen to get my hands on this book (figuratively, kindle of course).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not by the end of May. The rosiest projection I can offer is that it might be out by the end of June or maybe early July. The rough draft gets closer to completion every day. I've got my current chapter to wrap up and maybe two more to do, but then I'll need to go back to the beginning and do revisions, and then beta readers, and then possibly more revisions.
DeleteWhen the rough draft is completed, I'll put the prologue up here on my blog. That part is already in the hands of my beta readers and so far everyone's happy with it, including me.
Awesome! Can't wait.
ReplyDeleteI just hope you have fun naming the ships' personal and small craft: Whelp, Pup, Mutt, Poupée (bonus points if you can work in a scatological pun), Benji, Koinu..
ReplyDeleteJaneka is that hardass mentor. What I kept on think ing about was when Tanner was in space after the Jude got destroyed, "quit sandbaggn recruit!" Tanner seams like the kind of person to reflect on that. I think that out of every one Janeka is the only one that can really relate to Tanner ie her bloodstream story.( she didn't kill hundreds though.) I can also see her yelling at Tanner for not doing it STEALTHY doing it STEALTHY enough or something.
ReplyDeleteWHO ARE YOU EINSTEIN! RUNNING AROUND BLOWING UP POWER CELLS! Then again she seams like the kind of person to blow up power cells for shirts and giggles.
Any new updates on the book!?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm almost done... with the ROUGH draft. Like, the really rough draft full of things I need to cut and revise and decide if they make any sense.
DeleteSo, um... no?
Even that is nice to hear!
ReplyDeleteTo kind of echo what Hayden said, no matter what, I am super excited for this sequel. Your writing is fantastic.
ReplyDelete