Well, Chapter 8 is now in the folder. It needs a few revisions and proofs, but it’s fairly well established as it is. Unfortunately, it came in at over 7,000 words. But, I can’t see any way to stretch it out to 10,000 so I could split it in two. So, I guess I’ll just have to live with a long chapter.

One thing about this chapter, though, there is a storyline that can be established for a future chapter. I could’ve done it now, but it would be better to do it later because of the nature of an antagonistic group that has developed. They will have a significant impact on the future of the commune and whether or not it turns out bad there are currently a lot of characters that will be seriously impacted.

Yes, another nice set of characters that are easy to write about. Plus, I did add two new characters to the mix that will give good performances in the future.

Most of Sunday and today was spent working on tracking material to sort out which characters belong in which chapter. The other thing is the length of lifetimes in this society. I have to jump forward a lot and establish points in time that can be used for each set of characters. As an example, Chapter 8 jumped 76 years from the original timeframe at the beginning of the book. Mostly, this was done so that one of my favorite characters could age from 16 to 17. I know, confusing, but that’s the way I’ve designed this society.

Chapter 9 will go back to the original time and jump forward about 20 years so two girls can go from 11 to 12. Slower than Chapter 8, but puberty is involved and have to keep to medical realities. Can you imagine taking over 40 years to go thru puberty?

More fun and games to come.