Writing
Not done much mostly due to being tired from cycling and a bit of depression. I have roughly planned a transition away from the Whateley Independent Fiction that I had been working on. Mostly staying within the overall superhero genre but moving most of my existing characters into a setting that could be considered a game like world – that I have briefly planned in the past, mixed with a system of collectible gems (similar to collectible card game stories/fiction).
My big issue with the WhatIF stories is that while I love reading about other people’s characters at Whateley Academy (at the school) once my own characters get there I dislike the clique-ness of the school – not so much the setting – but that without being a canon author (which I don’t want to be) there is so many rules you need to follow to write your character to fit in with the setting so that with context it’s believable. The few characters I have written that have got that far, I got stuck actually trying to write a story that is set at the school.
So, I could keep my characters away from the school, keep the overall setting but just not have my characters attend – but the bottom line for me is that I like the setting because they – other authors characters – attend the school. If I remove the need for my characters to attend, then why set the story within the same setting.
Now I have been working on a setting of my own where people can obtain great power by acquiring specific gem like objects, each one is unique. The number of facets that each has follows a modified Fibonacci sequence (3,5,8,13,21… etc), roughly divided into tiers, and higher level gems can be split into smaller chunks that retain some of the advantages of a higher level gem, but otherwise function as a lower level gem (but with the higher level gem constraints), to make the story work a little better. The first – known – gems appeared in the 1950s, and by this point there are about five million wielders world-wide, and they superficially resemble superheroes and villains.
Most of my existing paranormal characters can be rewritten with this in mind, with a direct swap from manifesting as a mutant to finding a power gem that gives them the power of some kind. And the couple who can’t be due to the power gems not granting some of the abilities present within the WAU – for instance there is no gem that allows you to host a spirit that then gives you power like an Avatar, so my Skathi character won’t work directly within the setting, however Skathi started out as a character I was writing to fulfil a function within the WAU where I needed to have someone who could fight at range – most of my other characters at that point being entirely melee or non-combatants.
While True Monsters and Gods (and Dragons) all exist within my setting, I don’t plan on using them in the same way, none of them will be wandering round as human adjacent mutants/power gem users, though I suspect that some will be revealed to have been power gem users in the past – their gem sets though will long have been broken up, so while humans (and human based races) can achieve the same level of power as a god – or become dragons, which is a different thing to how I imagine you’re thinking about it – they are neither immortal nor any more likely than a base human to be able to appear so. True dragons are warm blooded lizard based life forms that come from elsewhere and are born with a gem in their heart. Dragons (not True Dragons) are considered to be the alternative to a God in power, becoming a god through your gem collection is the pinnacle of human development, becoming a Dragon through your gem collection means that you have surpassed your humanity and are moving on to a different place.
One of the other things I liked about Whateley when I first read the Generation 1 stories was that most of the characters changed in some way – many MtF – something that I personally think is lacking from much of Generation 2. And it is something that I want to bake into the power gems setting, so each person/animal in the setting has a core, they can then absorb a single gem into their core that becomes their Core Gem (this can then be later modified by additional gems), the core gam can be removed though the process is painful and uncomfortable – growing worse the more facets the gem has. Additional gems can be joined to each facet of the CG (with some limits) and there are ways to improve each gem (increase power) or change them. But the core gem also alters who/what you are, with greater changes being more common with high numbers of facets. It’s not an automatic sex change situation (though it will be common in my stories).
Current plan is to write a story that introduces the setting, and lays down some of the rules and history (it doesn’t start in the 50’s, that is just when the first gem is found/understood). Which I will almost certainly publish to the Whateley website (Crystal Hall) and here. But I still have many things to plan to make the whole setting work, once my initial story is done, then I’ll see if anyone else is interest in writing within this IP, but broadly speaking it will be an open Universe that providing you steal nobody else’s characters you can write in without permission. I plan on controlling how the setting evolves rather than the characters within it. But no Whateley/Hogwarts/etc style school/college for gem users.
Cycling/Bike
My plan to make a dual – side-by-side – bottle cage has failed, after several cardboard mock-ups I made a proper metal version out of 1.5mm aluminium, but it was too floppy and didn’t sit on the bike in a good place. I could make another to a new design (updated design), but I’m not sure if I will bother or not, I enjoyed the process, but the end result wasn’t worth anything.
Plus any subsequent version runs into many of the same issues, my cutting/shaping abilities aren’t the best, this version was only 1.5mm, to get the strength I need (to support a ~500g bottle or water, I suspect I will need either something stronger than aluminium, or a thicker metal plate, then I run into the issue of shaping again, and folding. So I’m not sure if I will continue or how I would if I do.
I have been cycling more, I seem to be doing about 20mi a day most days, so my average is probably in the high teens now, I’ve not really been recording stats though. I’m trying to stick to a one day on one day off schedule, but honestly I am enjoying cycling again so much that off days I might restrict myself to 10mi while on days I might only manage 25mi. Yesterday was an off day and I did 11 with the dog and then another 15 just for funsies later on. The current dry spell helps as I don’t need to worry about carrying typical Yorkshire outdoor gear (gum boots and sou’wester).
Tonight I plan on exploring the far side of the Twiss then cycling home from Ingleton – with the possibility of some chips on the way… Much later, it was a burger from Ingleton Pizza…
Did about 27mi total 24 last night, going to have to go again during daylight as it’s really nice up there and the route I followed was just one path, my only real issue is that I need to spend quite a bit of my battery just getting there, and then then some more getting back so I don’t have much more range to actually explore. Still it was fun, came home with a great big grin. 😀
Life
Cycling induced happiness aside I’m having a few issues with depression again and difficulties with my sleep, not sure how to deal with either. Though cycling is definitely helping with both, I think the cycling is the cause of being so sleepy too… it makes me tired so I sleep at night, but also I then sleep during the following day because I’m still so tired. I think I’ll have to wait and see how I feel once the weather breaks and I can’t get so many miles in as comfortably.