It's here

The outline came to me today. An illustrated book on the Sea Peoples arrived too, but the outline is what I mean.

Not the whole thing. Just the bones of what happens on Crete. Wanotreus is key (might be Wanotrias...I'm unclear yet on the correct masculine endings in Mycenaean Greek.) Oh, and Didalios. I'm still working on his name, too. Actually, might be telling he (like Kessandra) has a Mycenaean name, not a name with (presumed) Minoan forms (as is glimpsed in the Knossos tablets).

Anyhow, I've figured out the basic progression, the one that folds in physical location, evolving goals, evolution of understanding, useful shifts of perspective, etc. The inner and the outer plot as well as the thematic plot that sits over it. And it folds in the historical Palace of Knossos, un-repaired damage and Mycenaean redecoration and all, the Pylos-style workgroups, the Knossos style workgroups, the big festivals alluded to in some tablets, Scribal Hand 103, the vision of the Stone Birds, the Saffron Gatherers....

This means I can stop with generalized research. I can break down into a chapter plan and break out specific research questions. And as I find the answers, instead of trying to tuck them away against further use in a bramble-pile of general research, I can plug that data directly into chapter notes and character notes and setting notes. This just made the heap of research a heck of a lot more manageable.

Oh, and I'm going to redeem Paneb. But I'm getting ahead of myself. One of the big structural questions I still have to answer is if I'm interleaving episodes with the other characters during the Crete sequence. I don't want to do a lot of time jumping if I can help it, and the Deir el Medina stuff is too much fun to try to cram it into an epic flashback. I'm not against resetting the clock once at the top of Book Two but the Crete outline has some very convenient gaps/time skips in it anyhow where it would make sense to cut away from Kes for a while and return months or years later.




Also arrived is a new order for a Holocron or two, some metal-wound strings for my U-Bass, and a new prescription from my surgeon which is currently kicking my ass. So it is going to be a busy time here. Or I'll decide I need a break and play a little Mass Effect...

(Yeah, I'm starting to grasp harmonic analysis and reharmonization. The Hellboy theme I'm trying to re-arrange for U-Bass and trumpet seems to be alternating A minor with A Major...going up to an AM7 chord at the high note. But there's something else in the original recording, after the first statement of the theme...some further harmonic development I'm not quite grasping yet.)