Writing Status, July 2012

We’ve been pretty busy behind the scenes. I haven’t been blogging about it much because I’m never sure what is interesting to other folks versus what’s just interesting to me and it feels weird to talk about writing things that you guys may not get to see for a while.

Even so, a writing update every year or so is hardly blasphemous, am I right?

Besides, some people may be wondering about the little progress meters in the right sidebar of the website: what they mean and why they keep changing.

Choose

Choose is going into hibernation. It’s not dead (Remora and crew would hardly permit that!) but I won’t be writing any more on their adventures in the Interactive Webserial format. I could see picking them up again for short stories, novellas, or novels, but the “hurry up and wait” format of the interactive webserial saps my ability to write on other projects.

The final post will go live tomorrow, which is a bittersweet feeling on many levels, not the least of which is the niggling fact that the story isn’t even close to finished. “Finished” is light-years away, however, and I need to take the lessons I’ve learned from Choose and grow with them.

Volume 3 will be subtitled “Crossroads in the Sky” and takes place almost entirely on Bespin. At 36 installments (several of the later installments being far longer than the originals) this will be longer even than Volume 2.

Volume 1 introduced us to the world and characters, and set the crew on its journey.
Volume 2 added some characters and started revealing answers. Why doesn’t Hank trust Jinn? Why would Remora be on this crazy quest? We see bonds starting to form between the new crew members. Remora and Jinn spend some time together and Hackwrench actually manages to earn some of Hank’s respect.
Volume 3 complicates Remora and Jinn’s relationship with another big reveal and brings to the forefront the motivations of every character, including Snow and Hackwrench. We start to see some of the machinations in the greater world beyond their little airship. For many characters, we get a glimpse into not only the dark secrets of their past, but also hints at a greater darkness looming in their future.

Next up is polishing Volume 3, then submitting it to the Amazing Steve Hall for editing, then incorporating his edits, then getting the thing formatted for eBook. After THAT, I’ll beg Steve to format the entire three-volume series for print, because he did such an amazing job on the Saucy Unicorns Collection and I want to offer a dead tree book that’s WORTH spending the money on. Steve can accomplish that.

I still don’t have cover art for Volume 3, though. Hmmm.

Saucy Ink

My short story for the Saucy Ink Dragons collection is completed and its final draft submitted to the editor … but the book itself won’t be available for quite some time. We still have three short stories that haven’t been group critiqued yet, so it’ll probably be months before the entire collection is purchasable.

Unicorns was good, but Dragons is even better. Every returning author has improved as a storyteller and we’ve picked up a few new authors that have very strong contributions. I can’t wait to share it with you guys.

My story is entitled Love’s Champion, and follows Nathaniel Jones, a tattooed cowboy doing a favor for the fire god Hephaestus, only to find that favors to the gods are rarely as simple as they seem.

I won’t be making an “audiobook” version of this one. The last “audiobook” took me far too many hours to record and compile and I’d rather spend that time writing and planning more stories.

I do have my Saucy Ink Unicorns story out on submission to a short story magazine. Wish The Taxidermist luck!

Short Stories

Saucy Ink may not be hosting any more short story collections, but that’s no reason I can’t write a few more. One story I’d rejected for the Dragons collection is currently being reworked by Steven and myself. The new version will be very similar to the old one, but will contain 80% More Worldbuilding and 50% fewer words. The original story had been titled Wicked but the new version focuses less on dark vs light magic and will need a new title.

Once that story is done, I’d love to revisit the cut story thread and create a standalone short out of it.

As if that weren’t enough, another of the sparks I’d nurtured as a possibility for the Saucy Dragons can be modified to fit Nathaniel Jones’s world, so we’re doing the plotting and additional worldbuilding necessary to write the tentatively titled David’s Champion.

Novels

I know that the next novel I write will be Dragonspark.

I do not know that I will begin writing this story in 2012. I’m still not happy with what I’m seeing in the professional publishing landscape. Additionally, I’m quite pleased with how I’m learning and growing as a writer from writing these short stories, so I don’t feel pressured to get started being a seriousface writer and getting that novel done.

I’ve written multiple novels at this point, and I don’t feel like that particular milestone is what makes me a “real writer”.

Dragonspark is coming, but there’s a chance it’ll be a 2013 project for me. Who knows? Half a year still remains, and when Choose is no longer dictating so much of my writing attention, I may get antsy for another big project.

Related posts:

Writing Status : In The Shop For Repairs
July Arts
Where’d the Writing Go?