Selective Linear Thinking and Where I am on a Journey

I apologize for it being a while since my last post, but I'm going to get into why I've been out of the blogosphere for so long and then get into the main reason for this post; picking up where I left off with the status of Tempest Makers.

To be honest, I flaked out.

3 things happened.

One, I wanted to promote and self-publish by a certain date last year, and when that didn't happen I turned into a great big princess, took my toys and went home. I should have been looking at it from the perspective of an author and not attached to when and how it was published instead of purely (well, 98%) from the perspective of a tax write-off.

There's no passion in taxes.

All I had in my head were the words of the accountant. "If you have income from your writing, you can write off writing expenses." Writing income didn't show up and so no writing expenses to write off. After I stopped internally pouting and stomping I added up my writing expenses. They weren't really that high (Hell, they didn't even total $800).

So I got over myself.

Two, I reconnected with my writer friends at ConNooga this year. I have spent the last 3 years or so figuring out what I was going to do and how I was going to go about it. Between the 1^st year of recovering from the tons of information from the literary panels to finding a place within myself to do the work to be published, I appreciated that I understood the writers I admire had been where I am/was and were incredibly nice in answering my questions and giving advice. So this year I've recovered from my princess-drama wounds and I go to ConNooga. By the time the last day of Con rolls around I am reenergized and ready to self publish. Sitting in on panels and talking to a few writers, I have decided to speed up how I share this trilogy's universe to readers in simple and sincere ways.

The last thing that happened was during a conversation with my coaching accountability partner (I'm also a life and business coach). We were having a conversation about linear thinking. I felt rather boastful as I remarked how I just seem to not be stopped by things not happening a certain way because I've gotten use to things not happening in a 1-2-3 fashion. After the call, I realized I'd done the very thing I'd said I didn't do. But I don't come undone like that all the time.

I have selective linear thinking.

If I'm kind of neither-here-nor-there on something, and it's going 2-3-4-6 instead of 1-2-3-4-5, I'm not even fazed. But if it's something I've committed to, especially financially (I'm coming out of an ugly-bang phase with finances) or feel incredibly passionate about something and it take too long to get to 1 or the pace of going from 1 to 2 is "too slow" I tend to shut down.

I get it. I'm excited and I create this perfect scenario in my mind. But even I have to realize the Excitement Trains run on time to the Imagination Station of writing and not so much in the real world.

So after I got clear and re-energized, here we are.

And now to pick up where I left off.

The Apex Predatory Trilogy exists in an alternate-near-future universe. 

The first story, Tempest Makers, is set in the year 2030. Not only have we discovered we are not alone, but Earth has been inhabited by a race of beings known as Melovians for thousands of years. TM takes place after Earthlings and Melovians have discovered and returned to the Melovians' native planet. Think of Tempest Makers as if the characters and technology of James Cameron's Avatar landed on a less-hierarchical version of Arrakis (Frank Herbert's version of Dune not David Lynch's).

Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future heavily influenced what is going on technologically in trilogy. I also emailed my college Astronomy teacher, Physics professor Robert Marlowe at UT Chattanooga for questions on gravity, mass and other Astrophysics-type issues. I've never been committed to hard science, but I do want to have plausible suspension of disbelief with what I am writing.

Characters

I had a lot of fun coming up with names for my non-human characters. I have had the name "Ropo" on my brain since the 3^rd story in the trilogy was originally the 1^st story. As I began to flesh out TM as an anthology piece did Ropo (pronounced "Roh-poh") morph in Ropotoniskul ("Roh-poh-Tah-nish-kuhl) Mjodon (Myow-don).

Ropo was born and raised on Earth. Earth Melovian's physiology is different because of the difference in gravity, air quality and vegetation between the 2 planets (Melovia is a larger planet and has greater gravity). Ropo and his native Melovian kin have a reptilian appearance and both have 4 arms (Earth Melovians have hands. Native Melovians have claws.).

I would say that Ropo is learned but naïve.

Marcus Walkins is Ropo's human partner. Marcus is a little closer to being a warrior type to Ropo's paladin/knight. Marcus's fuse is shorter than Ropo's. The two have been on Melovia together for the past six months when the story begins.

I knew with a different world and how I wanted to pace the overall story arc, that this story would be relatively short. I've expanded it a little bit by adding 2 extra scenes (I'm working on the second one now).

My intention is to give you something to think about and I've always been a fan of thinking.

Have you had a "selective linear thinking" moment? What did you learn from it? Please leave a comment below.