"Glync" finished

(Welcome, new followers! Hope you're feeling right at home!)

I had a little story that I was playing with over the last few weeks. I call it "Glync" - which is just grabbing some letters each from both words of the title. I rather suspect my editor won't love the title, so I'm not getting overly attached to "Glync".

Interestingly enough, the uproar around some rather ill-considered blog posts in the community have fuelled the writing. There are some Deep Issues in Glync that I've put on the page. I think the story is stronger for it. But even so, I think it works. I think it's totally its own thing (even though it's vaguely related to Dark Edge of Honor - same universe, but different technology and issues and overall themes). It was one of those stories that I began to doubt 10k in, and then the next 10k were a brutal slog with the constant temptation to just drop the project and leave it all be, and then the last 4k just came together.

It's okay, Muse, you always know better than I do. I believe we've established that by now.

During this time, my beta readers kept asking for more. I think they loved it much more than I did (I do love it, but I also hated it while I was doubting it). Sometimes, my beta-readers are my sanity check. You guys owe these people more than you can imagine. If not for them, several of my stories wouldn't have gotten finished or cleaned up or edited or even started.

I wrote this story *for* somebody, and I can't wait to hear what she thinks about it.

At 24k, it has cleansed my palate; a different mood, a different angle, but I did love the characters and the grim humour of it. Also, sign me up to become a shapechanger - those guys and gals are amazingly hot.

Now that my palate *is* cleansed, I might renege on my various ideas and write the sequel to Lion of Kent first. After claustrophobic sci-fi, knights on the tournament circuit feels like the thing I need next, while the Muse chews on the next plot point of my WWII novel. I've promised that one, and I hate to keep people waiting. The Lion of Kent has been a while, so I guess it's about time.
Diving right back in will also prevent that post-book depression.

So, Gods (and Riptide) willing, you guys will get Country Mouse and Glync from me this year, and the Dark Soul paperback. (And whatever other stuff the muse cooks up in between the "big and stupidly ambitious books".) It's looking less bleak now. I might even ask Riptide to hold Glync back for a few months - into the second half of 2012. Just to space things out and take the pressure off my production schedule.

So, yeah. Either tournament fighters or Nazis. I'd say it's going to be a mood thing and also depend on a friend and co-writer.

In vaguely related news, I've become a member of the Arvon Foundation. I'll be doing a course there in September - a whole week without phone or internet, just writing and thinking. Depending on my mood, that sounds either like heaven or torture.