A Fresh Start

So this is the weird few weeks where I’ve not really got much to talk about, writing-wise, because I’ve only just gotten started with the year. And unlike last year, I’ve not currently got a massive novel manuscript on the go.

It’s… weird. Really weird. I’ve been writing Boiling Seas stuff for so long now, and even when I took breaks before to write shorts or children’s books or what-have-you, the manuscript always loomed before me, unfinished, waiting. And obviously it’s still not finished, because I’ve got all the editing to do – a process that will probably be far more time-consuming than the writing of the whole thing – but it looms in a different way now. Still there, still a huge thing on the horizon, but a little further away. A little less urgent. It’s nice.

So: how am I spending my Boiling Seas sabbatical so far? Well for starters, I’m writing up the session #2 material for my semi-homebrewed Warhammer 40k RPG campaign, which my players have been very patiently waiting for for months now. I have a plan, I have a plot coming together, as well as a bit of a ‘hub level’ for them to wander around, which was accidental but I think will add a little more flavour to the whole experience – and flavour, in stories like these, is everything. There is now an orangutan. Don’t ask questions.

It’s second-person writing, too, which is always an interesting challenge. I sit there and tell the story – thought it’s not like I’m just reading big chunks of prose while the players just sit there. For all that I’ll spend hours writing thousands of words, I’ll barely actually read any of them. This writing down is an exercise in getting the structure of the story and how it might go out of my head so I can tinker with it – and then when we actually play, I’ll throw half of that plan away and use the rest of the prose as notes to bounce my players off.

All I need to do now is finish the story bit, then figure out the rules for stealth combat and draw up some level designs…

But my progress was stalled by an unexpected blockage. Well, I say blockage: I got distracted by another idea. I rediscovered (thanks to the excellent Tom Scott’s excellent newsletter) NASA’s Astronomy Picture Of The Day website, which of course meant that the other day I stumbled across a very interesting astronomical phenomenon I’d never heard of before. And now, of course, I’m writing a story based around it. In the same vein as a few of my other SF pieces (I had to stop myself spoiling an upcoming release there), it’s basically taking some real science and mashing it into a completely different scenario. Like oxygen production and farming, for instance.

Not telling you what the phenomenon is yet. Have a look through the last week or so of pictures and see if you can figure it out.

That’s me for the next few weeks sorted, anyway. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on when it’s done. But for now, it’s a few small things, before the monolith begins to loom again.