A Far Sun: changes

Cross-posted to my LiveJournal writing blog.

Let's see if I can summarize what's going on:

• I've been figuring out who the Librarians were/are (as a group). Determining the history of the place, the people who were there originally, and the subsequent 'history' of what happened after. The Librarians call the disease 'the Pathogen.' How nice.
• The pseudo-scientist in me ran into problems with the 300+ year time line. You had to know this was going to happen sooner or later. Even if I could delude myself into believing the Librarians could survive that very long time (317 years), many wouldn't buy my cheesy explanations.
• So I cut 200 years out. It's now 117+ years instead of 317. This actually improved my 'moon phase' problem because I had fewer days to adjust, but it does mean it will most likely be fairly cool when my heroes first show up. Not a major problem, just a reflection of my own lack of planning. Oh, well.
• I kinda like the notion that one of the following would be true: 1) either the sun-skins would want to start the planting at (or after) the first spring full moon, or 2) they would want to have their spring celebration at the (same) full moon. As it stands, the moon is almost new when they have the celebration.
• If I move everything to make the full moon line up with planting and spring festival/ celebration, then my heroes get there when it's still pretty cold. If I wait a month (well, move everything about 2 weeks forward), they won't get to the Library until summer is almost over. Perhaps that's a good thing ...

I have noticed a distinct lack of proper planning prior to writing the bulk of the story. I sorta went for it without having figured out what was going to happen and how long/when, and now much later desiring to line everything up all nice and neat. Honestly, the time line isn't all that critical except for certain events that need to line up with moon phases, like the planting/ celebration and the 'midnight battle' which logically shouldn't occur when the moon is new (or just a sliver).

I am OK with the idea that I don't do enough planning before writing. Writing is a creative right-brain endeavor that is only balanced out by left-brain rigor and structure. I did pretty good with my impulsive right brain; now it's time to place some structure and logic to the story flow. I really think by spacing out some things more it actually makes more sense. It wouldn't just be a few days here, a few days there. I think we get a much better idea of the pace and flow of sun-skin life if we really just take our time and let things meander forward. So ... maybe the full moon in May (though they don't know it as May) is when the spring celebration happens. And if we have Adam and Jane leaving the village at the full moon in July or August (instead of the full moon in June) ...

Ah, so there's another problem. They need to plan to get back to the village before winter. This means leaving the village sooner instead of later is important (now I remember why I 'rushed' this in the story!).

Argh! Pushing the story too early in the spring means cold weather and possibly snow; pushing things later mean there wouldn't be time (necessarily) to make the trip before it gets cold again. My left brain is about to asplode, now. My right brain is saying everything is OK the way it is.

Stay tuned. I'm still working this out.