While I wanted to work this weekend on producing new material, I decided that I needed to sketch out an outline, at both the macro and the micro level, so that I would have a good idea of the overall canvas as well as the role that my various characters would have in it. Luckily, I had at least some measure of guidance (given that the novel is a retelling of the Sassanid/Byzantine conflict), but I have a larger canvass to deal with, so that opens up many opportunities.

That has really occupied almost the entire day, to be quite honest. At the end of it, however, I think I have a pretty strong idea of how the four volumes (it’s expanded from a trilogy) will play out. I’m pretty happy with the way that the action is resolved at the end of the first volume, which has a nice cliff-hanger but still sees all the characters where they need to be and sets the stage nicely for the next volume.

At the heart of the thing is the cosmological conflict between spirit (called æther in this world) and matter and the concomitant strife between the Name and the Demiurge, the divine manifestations of these two principles. I think that there will be a climactic battle between them, since part of my intention is to show what it actually means when deities, not just their avatars, fight for the future of the world they seek to control.

I’m also making a point of including not one, not two, but three LGBTQ+ characters, and at least two of my characters are people of colour. Indeed, I think that the romance between two of my leads will actually prove fundamental to the conflicts that arise in books 3 and 4.

Making progress!