Going, ongoing
This summer has been nothing short of insane on the work front, and I hate to say how little writing I've gotten done in the last couple months. It's been a whole slew of personal life stuff, mostly--switching hours at work, personal life drama, and financial issues (and flies attempting to have sex on my keyboard, which is happening right now). Luckily it looks to be settling down, and I can get back down to business.
As some of you may have gleaned, I'm back on the Lanternfly train yet again after oscillating for the past nine months. I have a start, finally, and although I'm not going to make any sort of committal statements, I'm finally fairly sure this is going to be the one I pursue. I can't really put it into words. I just feel like this version works. So here's an updated list of my projects as of now and the order I'll be doing things for the next year.
CLOUDNIGH & THE INVINCIBLE KINGDOM
This is currently on the backburner. I've been working on it for three years, and I need a break. All of my betas are back to me now, and it's clear that those evil 70 pages in my intro need a severe rewrite. This is mostly an issue of pacing and how I set things up, which just wasn't done very well. The story needs to take off faster. Unfortunately I don't have the energy to rewrite chapters I've written three times in the past year. So that's where I'm at.
Incidentally I've got new working titles for the trilogy. Right now the three book titles are supposed to be CLOUDNIGH, HAVEN, and LETHE. As always, subject to change. I've got outlines now, so that makes me feel a little better. The goal is to come back to the third draft of 'Nigh in early 2013, depending on what happens with--
LANTERNFLY & HELLION
Last week I played with a new first chapter that seems to finally have given the story the start I want. The problem has always been causality with Lanternfly--so much happens before the offset of the story that I need a way to get it off on the right foot without plaguing readers with infodumps (this happened with Cloudnigh). Originally I just covered it all in the first 8 chapters, but that doesn't work. This version throws the story off with a bang, and keeps the momentum up. By my outline, I think I'm looking at an MS between 90-110k--a lot shorter than my last two works. No titles for the other books in the series, although the title "SALAMANDER" will definitely be reused at some point.
DELIRIUM ANDROMEDA
My stand-alone about communications issues and political factions in a post-apocalyptic America. This has mostly been swallowed by my ditherings between Cloudnigh and Lanternfly, so I don't know when I'll be working on it. Hopefully once Lanternfly is done and I've done another draft of Cloudnigh. This could probably happen a year from now, in 2013.
GHOSTLINES
My old novel, Shadower, with a sci-fi twist. I got the idea fairly recently, but my worry is that some of the concepts run too parallel to what's in my Hellion work. I've always loved the Shadower story, so I want to get back to it at some point. If I do write this, I don't know if it'll be before late 2013-2014.
OTHER STUFF--
UNTITLED HIGH FANTASY EPIC--A recent idea of mine about the exiled son of a king who after going on a spiritual journey is called back home to claim the throne. It's still in the "kicking around in my head" phase. I had a title and I keep forgetting it. Probably around 300k.
ROMAN & KYRIE NOVELLA--A new idea I got after having to cut all their back story in draft 3. I had this idea that I could tell the story of their relationship in chat transcripts. I like it, and I may actually make an attempt before I finish the third draft. Who knows.
DANTE NOVELLA--Another one on the back burner. There's a chance I might be able to cover this in my reworked third draft, so I don't know.
AETHERIAD--The story of the villain from Hellion told from the perspective of a cat. This is still supposed to be a graphic novel, but I can never find time to do any development on it.
As some of you may have gleaned, I'm back on the Lanternfly train yet again after oscillating for the past nine months. I have a start, finally, and although I'm not going to make any sort of committal statements, I'm finally fairly sure this is going to be the one I pursue. I can't really put it into words. I just feel like this version works. So here's an updated list of my projects as of now and the order I'll be doing things for the next year.
CLOUDNIGH & THE INVINCIBLE KINGDOM
This is currently on the backburner. I've been working on it for three years, and I need a break. All of my betas are back to me now, and it's clear that those evil 70 pages in my intro need a severe rewrite. This is mostly an issue of pacing and how I set things up, which just wasn't done very well. The story needs to take off faster. Unfortunately I don't have the energy to rewrite chapters I've written three times in the past year. So that's where I'm at.
Incidentally I've got new working titles for the trilogy. Right now the three book titles are supposed to be CLOUDNIGH, HAVEN, and LETHE. As always, subject to change. I've got outlines now, so that makes me feel a little better. The goal is to come back to the third draft of 'Nigh in early 2013, depending on what happens with--
LANTERNFLY & HELLION
Last week I played with a new first chapter that seems to finally have given the story the start I want. The problem has always been causality with Lanternfly--so much happens before the offset of the story that I need a way to get it off on the right foot without plaguing readers with infodumps (this happened with Cloudnigh). Originally I just covered it all in the first 8 chapters, but that doesn't work. This version throws the story off with a bang, and keeps the momentum up. By my outline, I think I'm looking at an MS between 90-110k--a lot shorter than my last two works. No titles for the other books in the series, although the title "SALAMANDER" will definitely be reused at some point.
DELIRIUM ANDROMEDA
My stand-alone about communications issues and political factions in a post-apocalyptic America. This has mostly been swallowed by my ditherings between Cloudnigh and Lanternfly, so I don't know when I'll be working on it. Hopefully once Lanternfly is done and I've done another draft of Cloudnigh. This could probably happen a year from now, in 2013.
GHOSTLINES
My old novel, Shadower, with a sci-fi twist. I got the idea fairly recently, but my worry is that some of the concepts run too parallel to what's in my Hellion work. I've always loved the Shadower story, so I want to get back to it at some point. If I do write this, I don't know if it'll be before late 2013-2014.
OTHER STUFF--
UNTITLED HIGH FANTASY EPIC--A recent idea of mine about the exiled son of a king who after going on a spiritual journey is called back home to claim the throne. It's still in the "kicking around in my head" phase. I had a title and I keep forgetting it. Probably around 300k.
ROMAN & KYRIE NOVELLA--A new idea I got after having to cut all their back story in draft 3. I had this idea that I could tell the story of their relationship in chat transcripts. I like it, and I may actually make an attempt before I finish the third draft. Who knows.
DANTE NOVELLA--Another one on the back burner. There's a chance I might be able to cover this in my reworked third draft, so I don't know.
AETHERIAD--The story of the villain from Hellion told from the perspective of a cat. This is still supposed to be a graphic novel, but I can never find time to do any development on it.
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