What Am I Doing: July 2024 Edition

How much storytelling mileage can one get out of a joke? Answer: at least 6000 words and I’m probably not even halfway through yet.

I’ve had a bit of a break from Boiling Seas 3 editing for the last couple of weeks – largely because while my rewrite of one plotline is going swimmingly, I really need to insert and adjust the other half of the story before I get too far into things. Ideally I want two mini-climaxes to line up with each other for Maximum Excitement, similar to the various airship fights in Nightingale’s Sword, so I need to make sure one half isn’t too much longer than the other or I’ll have to start actively adding filler instead of just accidentally writing far too much like I normally do.

So that’s a chunk of writing and editing that I really need to dedicate a day or two to, rather than just doing it in the morning before work. First-thing writing is perfectly fine to just create, I find – I can get some really good words down, and have been doing so every day for the last… almost 10 years? Wow. But when I’m editing I need to engage my brain on a more conscious level rather than just going with the flow. And as my brain is currently engaged with wedding planning and the assorted life admin involved, I haven’t found a moment for said editing day just yet.

Therefore, Silly Story. A Silly Story which has actually gotten fairly serious in the telling, even as I work from a premise that is little more than a stupid pun. It’s fantasy, loosely, and in a departure from my normal output it’s largely a legal drama. (Despite this being the central essence of the starting joke I didn’t anticipate quite how much actual court-case I would have to write; the legal system of this story may not end up bearing up to much scrutiny. Thankfully, it’s not meant to be fair…)

It might end up a bit too contrived for proper publication but I’ll at least let you lot read it. I also started another short, but this one actually requires some thinking to make proper sense so again I’ve set it aside for now.

I’ve had to do a lot more creative palate-cleansing with this book than I normally would, and it might be because the narrative is complex but it’s probably a lot more to do with the rest of life. I’ve got a lot on. Shorter, simpler stories sit better with my brain right now. It’s times like these that I really should look back at my children’s stories and see what else I can put together on that front… but I can’t let myself get distracted with a different book. Short stories are one thing, a whole other novel (even a novella) is quite another.

I anticipate having a lot more creative brain-space, and brain-space in general, after the end of August. Funnily enough one’s wedding takes up a lot of one’s attention. But the Boiling Seas are never far from my mind, and I just have to make sure I remember to write down all the mad little extra ideas I keep thinking of on my walks to work. That’s how I worked in magic hoverboards, after all.

And several of the extant tasks on my wedding list are literary in nature, in fairness. And I’m not even talking about my speech.

Though I should also write my speech. I really should write my speech.