One of the most important lessons I've learned with The Fifth Season and Shadow of the Fall is that planning goes a long way. There's opinions left and right on whether one should plan or not; Stephen King doesn't do it at all, and Steven Erikson takes 8 months to plan and 4 to write. When it comes to short stories, I need a little planning, but I can get away with a sketchy idea. Not only is the entire theme and plot packaged in less than twenty-five-or-so pages, but editing it is akin to editing a couple of chapters at most.

As you might have guessed, Syzygy is now a speculative brick, complete with quadruple POV's, web of plotlines and more themes and allegories than my little head can contain. So in comes the planning, and more than that a piece of planning software (free download from the internet) which has put my worries to rest. I have 30 chapters outlines, some in good detail (in words as well as in my mind, but then some key scenes are so crisp in my head that they don't really need to be jotted down).

And it just showed me how lazy I am, and the bad results of such laziness. I can no longer escape the holes, and bend the story to amend when I later find a slightly inappropriate way to plug it. As such I'm still hanging at thirty thousand words, but with some quality material taking shape. Four stories: Isia (completed), Phixos (completed), Kimishtal (draft), Eilam (outline).

Different styles. Different experiences. Different authors. Love. Blood. War. Faith. Obsession. Redemption.

Should be good.