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Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Kricket Project, Part 2

There are a couple pieces of good news this week. The first isn't related directly to writing. I'm officially finished with my last classes for my B.A. in English Language and Literature, so now all I have to do is survive until graduation next weekend. It's a big weight off my shoulders, so hopefully, I'll be even more inspired to write in what little free time I'm going to have over the next few weeks. Between traveling and preparing for what will hopefully be my new job, I'll be extremely busy, and there's just no way around that. Not unless I want to end up driving my truck off a cliff.

The other good news is that I've finished rewriting the first four chapters of The Kricket's Song, and I've begun making forward progress with the book again. You can take a look at the counter on the right side of the blog to see how many words I've currently got. I'm much, much happier with the new version. I feel like the pacing had developed much better, and I think the writing in general is a lot more solid. Of course, there will always be room for improvement.

So, as I promised last week, here's some more info on the Kricket Project, starting with some character bios for the main characters. These will be pretty limited, of course, as I don't want to give any spoilers for the book itself.

Character Bios, Part 1
Jonah: Jonah is the books main character. He's a registrant (student) in the Capital's university, studying repulse-tech, which is a new form of propulsion for airships. He's very smart, but a little stuck up. His sense of humor can be abrasive or condescending. Despite these faults, he does care very deeply for his friends. He's not good at showing it, though. He strongly believes in improving oneself constantly, and in doing the right thing, no matter the personal cost. He keeps his beliefs to himself though, and it can be hard to get through his sardonic manner into the real Jonah.

His main goal for this book is to figure out what happened to his fiancee, Katerina, who has gone missing. He suspects the Guv has something to do with her disappearance.

Skip: Captain of the airship Kricket. She's a daring young woman with something to prove. Sometimes a smuggler, sometimes a salvager, but NEVER a pirate. She keeps her past to herself for the most part. Like Jonah, she's got a bit of a pride issue, which creates friction between them fairly early. She's independent and distrustful of organizations, especially the Guv. She's extremely loyal to her friends, but it's very hard to become one of them. She's a good practical problem solver; for problems she doesn't know how to solve, speed, firepower and guts in varying but excessive proportions usually do the trick.

Skip's motivations in helping Jonah search for his girlfriend are the potential benefits of discovering whatever secret the Guv is hiding. Katerina knows something about it, and Skip hopes to use the information to her advantage.

Mouse: Jonah's self-professed "best friend" an inventor wannabee. Mostly she just adapts other people's inventions and comes up with new names for them. She's very intelligent, she just hasn't found her niche yet. Like Jonah, she's a student at the university, but she still hasn't figured out what she wants to study, despite being there two years. She's very friendly and intensely loyal. She's curious about EVERYTHING. She has no sense of tact when talking to others. She's not much into "action and adventure," but if she can be convinced she might discover something for a new invention, she can be coaxed into just about any dangerous situation.

Mouse's goals are to stick by Jonah's side and do her best to keep him out of trouble. She doesn't care for Katerina much, but she can't stand to let Jonah run off by himself on this one.

That's it for now, in the interest of keeping posts at a reasonable length. More next week!

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