Back in the Saddle
The last few weeks here at Cameron Darrow's Ye Olde Sapphic Fiction Emporium have been... not great. The Fates intercede when it suits them, not us, and sometimes they do so in ways that demand everything you have and more.
It's not the first time since I've started writing here that they've done so, so I have some practice lurching back into the swing of things. And one thing I've learned is to take my time in doing so. Rushing back in before you're mentally ready is a good way to ensure it actually takes longer and is worse for you in the long run.
Over the course of the pandemic, I didn't take any time off. I was nose to grindstone, head down, escaping into imaginary worlds with my imaginary friends every day. Whether it was to keep the outside world at bay, or because, you know, what else was there to do, I wrote and published four (or five depending on your definition of the pandemic) entire fantasy books, a short story and put together a box set. That's a lot of work, more than I appreciated at the time because I was in the middle of it.
But since the break I took after finishing Pax Victoria, I haven't been able to work up any momentum on any of the projects I've started. They either didn't work, I fell out of love with them or, most recently, outside events came along to arrest whatever I had managed to build up, leaving me to start all over again. It feels like I've been in this constant sequence of restarts and reboots that has added up to six months of nothing concrete to show for it. My average for getting books out is every seven months. Needless to say, that won't be true anymore.
I'm a momentum-driven writer; once I get up to speed, I can barrel through a project through to its end and spin up another one almost immediately. But, like a gigantic flywheel, getting that initial energy into it can be hard. I started in the autumn of 2016 and didn't stop until autumn of 2022 (aside from a brief pause after Hall of Mirrors came out and I almost quit writing altogether). I've never stopped before.
So how am I starting again?
By going back. If you've read this far, you will be the first to find out that a box set of the entire From the Ashes of Victory series is coming! And sooner than later. It will include all six books plus the short story from the first box set, A Christmas in Paris, with a new cover designed by yours truly. Exercising a different part of my creative brain has been fun, and it will be nice to have complete closure on the series.
After that? I have tons of research yet to do for the new book(s), and that occupies the rest of my time right now. This is the first time I intend to do a series from the beginning, so I want to lay all the groundwork and get everything firmly established so I can build on it. That means not only real-world research, but creating the rules for magic and the histories of the characters and the world they live in. There's a lot of whys and hows I have to consider before I can dig too deeply into the plot, something I learned from both the Ashes books and the Alumita books that are out thus far. I have a better sense of what I need to know, what's important and what isn't, and hopefully that will lead to a more streamlined process once I have all the pieces in place.
So! This post may have started out as a bit of a bummer, but things are percolating again, and hopefully I will have more posts about the process and the things I'm considering in building a new world from scratch. Time will tell! But spring is all but here, a good time to open the windows and let in some fresh air.
And to breathe it in, one breath at a time.
It's not the first time since I've started writing here that they've done so, so I have some practice lurching back into the swing of things. And one thing I've learned is to take my time in doing so. Rushing back in before you're mentally ready is a good way to ensure it actually takes longer and is worse for you in the long run.
Over the course of the pandemic, I didn't take any time off. I was nose to grindstone, head down, escaping into imaginary worlds with my imaginary friends every day. Whether it was to keep the outside world at bay, or because, you know, what else was there to do, I wrote and published four (or five depending on your definition of the pandemic) entire fantasy books, a short story and put together a box set. That's a lot of work, more than I appreciated at the time because I was in the middle of it.
But since the break I took after finishing Pax Victoria, I haven't been able to work up any momentum on any of the projects I've started. They either didn't work, I fell out of love with them or, most recently, outside events came along to arrest whatever I had managed to build up, leaving me to start all over again. It feels like I've been in this constant sequence of restarts and reboots that has added up to six months of nothing concrete to show for it. My average for getting books out is every seven months. Needless to say, that won't be true anymore.
I'm a momentum-driven writer; once I get up to speed, I can barrel through a project through to its end and spin up another one almost immediately. But, like a gigantic flywheel, getting that initial energy into it can be hard. I started in the autumn of 2016 and didn't stop until autumn of 2022 (aside from a brief pause after Hall of Mirrors came out and I almost quit writing altogether). I've never stopped before.
So how am I starting again?
By going back. If you've read this far, you will be the first to find out that a box set of the entire From the Ashes of Victory series is coming! And sooner than later. It will include all six books plus the short story from the first box set, A Christmas in Paris, with a new cover designed by yours truly. Exercising a different part of my creative brain has been fun, and it will be nice to have complete closure on the series.
After that? I have tons of research yet to do for the new book(s), and that occupies the rest of my time right now. This is the first time I intend to do a series from the beginning, so I want to lay all the groundwork and get everything firmly established so I can build on it. That means not only real-world research, but creating the rules for magic and the histories of the characters and the world they live in. There's a lot of whys and hows I have to consider before I can dig too deeply into the plot, something I learned from both the Ashes books and the Alumita books that are out thus far. I have a better sense of what I need to know, what's important and what isn't, and hopefully that will lead to a more streamlined process once I have all the pieces in place.
So! This post may have started out as a bit of a bummer, but things are percolating again, and hopefully I will have more posts about the process and the things I'm considering in building a new world from scratch. Time will tell! But spring is all but here, a good time to open the windows and let in some fresh air.
And to breathe it in, one breath at a time.
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