I am continually surprised by the number of readers who seem to thirst for the next chapter of Somewhere Else Entirely. That being the case, I thought I'd jot down a few notes about the story - without giving anything away, I hope - so that readers know what to expect.

Firstly, this will be a complete story. Although by no means all of it has been written, it has a definite beginning, middle and end. I guess we're somewhere about halfway now (ch 35) in terms of telling the story, although there do seem to be far too many chapters written so far!

I do know exactly how it will end, and the last chapter is already written. I have a reasonable grasp of how I'm going to get from here to there, but as always in these things the characters may have other ideas...

One thing I seriously underestimated, as I may have mentioned before, is the effect a person from a modern era might have on a society as little as three centuries younger. This means I have had to try and educate the locals in as much 'modern' technology as they could manage, bearing in mind (i) these things take time to develop, even if you have someone standing there instructing you and (ii) our teacher is a 17-year old.

So, not only do I have to try and get them going but I also have to guess what an 'average' teenage boy might know. I've deliberately given him a literary background, but I didn't want to assume that he knew everything: rats might be smelt. Truth is, he wouldn't know everything, but then Palarandi society is going to develop in it's own way, not follow the path of early Earth industrial societies. They'll use what they are given and then make their own choices.

Of course, it can be surprising just what 17-year-olds do know - at that age I was building my own TVs and reading texts on subatomic particles, so you never can tell. On the other hand, no-one in their right minds would ever have called me normal, for a number of reasons, one of which is demonstrated by the fact that I am here on BCTS.

The next problem I faced is that all this disposition on the Industrial Revolution kind of gets in the way of the main story, which is of course a boy's mind (at first) in a girl's body, and no-one is quite sure just where she is if anywhere at all. [This last aspect is explored some more at a later date.] Naturally there's a love story there. We might be able to see it, but none of the protagonists can, yet.

To accomplish all this I have had to build an entire planet out of scratch, and for some bizarre reason, I seem to be able to do that quite easily. It can be difficult getting the details straight, though. I've already made a couple of blunders, neither of which are important. The cast of characters has exploded in size, such that I'm having difficulty thinking up names - and remembering them!

Beyond the story of Garia and what happens to her on Anmar is another shadowy tale: that of the 'vast, multi-dimensional beings'. There's another story there, but apart from facilitating Gary/Garia's transfer it isn't really anything to do with what happens on Anmar. The beings will make other appearances, but only at the very end will their part be explained, if then. Properly, I need to write a different story that revolves around the beings and [redacted], but it wouldn't be TG so can't feature on BCTS.

Please, no! I have some other ideas festering in my fevered brain that need writing down. I have always been wary of writing two or more stories at once, for fear I could get them mixed together or make one or more look disjointed. When I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll and like to keep it that way. Occasionally it works, but at the cost of slowing down the posting of both stories.

For now, enjoy the ride. There will be a good few more chapters to come, and plenty of thrills, spills and shocks along the way. I'm pleased that you all like what I've done so far. I'll try to keep up the standard.

Penny

PS I have another planet, if you're interested: the locals have either one gender or thirty-six, depending on how you define gender... strangely, that tale wouldn't be TG either.