With my major self edits on the Odyssium Collection Volume 2 out of the way, I’ve been able to shift focus back to plotting out the next Odyssium series. In a way, having a year of inactivity in regards to the release schedule and conventions hasn’t been all bad. I knew going in that the next chapter in the mainline Odyssium saga, Tides of Odyssium, was going to need some extra padding when it comes to thinking the series through, and that’s down to the nature of the series.
Its predecessor trilogy, Eyes of Odyssium, was a set of standalone novels strung together by a continuity that propels world events forward in the background. Those books were pretty easy to plot, since you only really have to map things out one book at a time. This time around, it’s necessary to map out all four books at the starting line, since Tides happens to be one continuous story.
The core focus of the story is one I’ve hinted at here and there, and it’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for close to twenty years. Figured I probably should get it out of my system before I kick the bucket, so now seemed as good a time as any.
I wrote a book back in the mid-‘00s called Tides of Twilight and wound up pushing it aside in favor of working on what was then going to be a single book called The 13th Paragon. After Paragon, this Tides series I'm working on was supposed to be next, so I scribbled down an outline for its first installment. On my to-do list this year was to read through that nearly ten-year-old outline and start making whatever minor adjustments were necessary.
I threw it all out and started over.
In a sense, the new version of the first book of Tides at times feels like it’s a separate series outside of Odyssium. It’s that different. There’s no Salla, no Majdi, none of the familiar trappings. But that’s what Odyssium is all about. The world and the series itself is built so I can venture off in any direction I feel like and still tie it into the series.
So different is okay. Different is good, and it’s exciting.
Till next time,
-C