Brotherhood of the
BLACK FLAG

My folks are gone again, but while they were here my Mom let me tell her pretty much the entire Black Flag saga (at least as much as I know so far, some of the later stories don’t have much plot development done on them yet). Not only that, but my niece Tima sat there and listened to the entire session, *hours* and *hours* worth, of her own free will, with no ulterior reason to hang out and listen to me telling stories that I am aware of.

During the course of this epic storytelling session I realized that Bonnie Anne must have an excellent memory for the stuff people say to her, which should have been obvious from the way she keeps quoting things Silver says back at him, but somehow I didn’t ever make the connection before. That was a writerly thing that I was doing, not a characterly thing that she was doing… or so I thought. But she’s the only one who does do it, so it is a characterly thing.

I’m not cross-posting this, so probably no one will see it besides the bots and me.  But I guess I just want a historical record, or something.  In my last post I mentioned a new Black Flag story.  How many Black Flag stories does that make?    Well, I guess it depends on how you count them, but here is the run-down of the Black Flag stories my backbrain has ‘discovered’ so far.

1: Flag in Flames (the original, starring Bonnie Anne, Silver and Blood)

Pirate’s Grace (Non main-line story immediately following 1.  Starring Grace, a ‘walk-on’ in 1 never mentioned by name.)

Mantis (Fairly main-line, but only a short.)

(As of yet unnamed possible comic/adventure series featuring the “totally un-canon” adventures of the Talon Five.)

Space Spawn (Non main-line story starting just before 2 starts, starring the daughter of a minor character from 1.)

2: Blood Price (Bellamie’s Story.)

3: Dominion (Turner’s Story.)

4: Ghost in the Clockwork  (Ghost’s Story.)

5: Soul of a Talon (Morgan’s Story.)

(May possibly need something here to complete 4?)

(Possible spin-off drama/adventure series about Morgan and Kidd.)

6: Beyond the Deep (Lock’s Story.  Also Bator.)

7: Child of Terror (Jinsun’s Story.)

8: Crimson Seas (Toralyn’s Story)

9: (Arouj and Kheyr’s story.)

10: (G’s Younger Son’s story — thus implying that there is an older son who might also have a story.)

I also have had some interest expressed in Moracey Talon, and he is one of my favorite characters, and I certainly have enough story material to work with…   BUT,  if I tell a prequel story about him, I don’t know how I could give it a happy, or even generally trending upward, ending.  Sigh.

Message to backbrain:  I really wouldn’t mind, really I wouldn’t, if this list did not get any longer between now and the release of the first story.  Couldn’t you put in some work on Sails of Everwind instead?  I am a third of the way through writing that one and I still have only the vaguest of clues as to what is going on.

About a week ago we invited a family from church over for homemade pizza, and they were kind enough to pretend an interest in our creative projects.  So I got a chance to natter on about what I was doing, and see that typical bemused and confused expression when I said (in reference to the “Character Interviews” up as extras on the Black Flag page) that “I didn’t know Blood was going to say that”.   The young lady I was talking to blinked, and said “Wait… what?  Isn’t he your character?”  “Yes.”  “And you were writing his answers yourself?”  “Yes.  I knew what the answer to the question was, the answer is ‘red’.  But he didn’t say ‘red’, he said ‘none of your business.’  I didn’t know he was going to say that.” “?!?!?”

Well, if the non-writers find that one confusing, how about this one:

I have been working on the first Black Flag story for three years now.  I’ve had the script written for over two years.  I’ve done about two thirds of the artwork.  (And I’ve written the scripts for two sequels.)

I only just realized that one of my male leads is incapable of lying.

His story is already written.  I know how he acts.  I knew when he didn’t want to answer a question, he would evade it… usually with a counter question.  But I didn’t really notice that “no lies” was what that behavior boiled down to, until, while discussing the story with my husband the subject of lying came up and I noted that he wasn’t good at it.  “He can’t lie at all,” my husband responded.

Oh, yeah.  So he can’t.

…and in other news, last night my brain coughed up yet another Black Flag sequel.  Somebody shoot me.

My latest attempt to prevent the fourth Black Flag story from completely taking over my brain, was to try watching trailers for up-coming movies, hoping that would give my story fabulator something else to think about (since space ship construction obviously isn’t enough to keep it busy).

…so now the theater in my head is running a trailer for a live-action movie version of Black Flag IV:  Ghost in the Clockwork.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaarg!

I would just give up and write the script already, except that there are another six or seven more where that one came from, so all I will be doing is trading in four for five and then five for six and then six for seven, etc, etc.  I refuse to get so caught up in envisioning sequels that I never get the first one finished.  Grumble.

I finished the script to Black Flag 3 last week.

Afterward I spent several days happily re-reading it and going, ‘look… squee! — dashing young pirate getting mugged by a bunch of fusty lawyers — dashing young pirate removing his shirt in court so he can present his muscles as evidence — dashing young pirate getting told he’s ‘too domestic’ while he is in the middle of shooting down armed invaders — bwahahahah!’ and then going back and reading the Black Flag 2 script so I could compare. The script for 2 is only half as long as the script for 3… “there must be something wrong with one or the other of them. Lets check…. aahhh, 2… now here is a man who knows how to get things done. Ooh, yeah! I love this story. Oh. Um…. Better check over 3 again. Yay, dashing young pirate telling off evil spy-chick, woot! But, still twice as long. Hmm… better go check 2 again…”

But now my brain seems to have decided that I should be working on Black Flag 4.

Unfortunately, I only have 2/3rds of the art for Black Flag 1 done. Scripting 2 makes some sort of sense, but scripting 3 was, without a doubt, jumping the gun a little — scripting 4 would just be ridiculous.  Obviously I need to hurry up and get some more spaceships built so I can get back to doing actual artwork, or I’m going to drive myself bonkers.  But it’s hard concentrating on spaceships, when the theater in my head is trying to play romantic scenes between a space-pirate genius inventor chick and the slave-owning ruler of an iron age nation who has been told since birth that he is a god.

The next Ice Wolf story has gotten a thousand words or so further along too. As usual, Bambi is about to get in a fight: If she doesn’t win, she’s in big trouble; she’s not at all sure that she can win, and…
…even if she actually does win, she’s still in big trouble. >:)

Meanwhile Serena has discovered that it is possible to for someone to sidetrack her empathic abilities by the completely innocent means of having a crush on her.  Whenever he’s with her any other emotions he might feel get drowned out by the “isn’t she wonderful… and she even said she’d go out with me, whee!” euphoria.  And if that wasn’t distracting enough, he’s also really cute, and almost as big as she is.  Too bad he’s the opposition.

Chapter 12 Completed!

Characters – 54 / 62 Characters – 87% Done
Construction – 27 / 41 Constructions – 66% Done
Art – 134 / 220 Pages – 61% Done

Production Total – 67% Done
Estimated Completion Date: September 2nd, 2010

Characters – 54 / 62 Characters – 87% Done
Construction – 23 / 41 Constructions – 56% Done
Art – 108 / 220 Pages – 49% Done

Production Total – 57% Done
Estimated Completion Date: February 27th, 2011

I just finished putting together page 100 of Black Flag.

In the webcomic forum I inhabit, page 100 is usually considered a major milestone that you are supposed to brag about and collect congrats for, but A) I just posted about hitting halfway on the production meter and collected congrats for that, and B) I’m not posting these pages to the public, so I don’t have a webcomic that has reached page 100, I’ve merely created 100 pages of a webcomic. Its not quite the same thing, and bragging about it feels a bit like cheating, especially when it’s so soon after the last brag.

I feel like I’m managing to walk out of step with myself, somehow.

Characters – 53 / 62 Characters – 85% Done
Construction – 23 / 41 Constructions – 56% Done
Art – 96 / 220 Pages – 44% Done

Production Total – 53% Done
Estimated Completion Date: May 17th, 2011

My stats after doing the title page for chapter nine…

Characters – 53 / 62 Characters – 85% Done
Construction – 23 / 41 Constructions – 56% Done
Art – 84 / 220 Pages – 38% Done
Production Total – 50% Done

Estimated Completion Date: August 2nd, 2011

Yeeeehaaaaw!