Evolution of a trilogy.





So I've mentioned Author of the Gust a few times. At least.

What I don't think I've brought up is that it's actually a trilogy, first in a series of three. The next two books are called Scion of the Storm and Herald of the Calm. Catchy names, right? I thought so.

But it didn't start out so catchy. When I was first writing Author of the Gust, I had what is called a "working title". This is where you write a book under a placeholder name, because titles are hard, and you shouldn't work yourself into a fit trying to come up with one when you first start writing a book. I'm working on a new novel right now that picks up a few centuries after The Consecution Books, it’s called "The Conditional Continuation" right now, because titles are hard.

Author of the Gust was no different. The working title almost the entire book was written under was simple “ninjas vs. pirates”, which you may recall as an internet meme. Well, we all get our inspiration from stupid places. About the time I finished the first rough draft of the story, I had changed the name to Antelope, and by the second draft settled on Galloping Antelope.

I had already planned on a sequel almost from the inception of Author, and was even working on it under the catchy Scion of the Storm title. Galloping Antelope and Scion of the Storm, this was before it evolved into an official trilogy, just FYI.

About the time I finished the 5^th or 6^th draft of Author(It had a lot of drafts, ok?) I was done writing Scion and beginning work on Herald. That’s right: Herald of the Calm started out life under that exact name. Spooky, huh?

By this time of course the series had become a trilogy and next to those last two names, Galloping Antelope was looking pretty shabby. The whole series tells the story of the beginning, middle, and finally end of a world-wide war between the dominant powers of a planet populated entirely by over-achievers. Author began that story. Then of course we have the Storm and Calm symbolism, it was neat. How does a storm begin? With a gust, of course! Gust, storm, calm, makes sense.

And that, my friends, is now it happens.

And for those of you following along, and I know you're out there, the count is down to 624, we are approaching the halfway mark!