‘What am I up to?’ you ask.
‘Not all that much,’ I reply.
I have one work currently in progress, Passage to Jarpara. It will end up either as a novella or a short novel, depending on when I reach its end. At present, I am 25K words into the story which is my third Tropic Sea Tale. It takes up the story of the Sella, Lessie, Taef and Carz within a week or two of where we left them at the end of The Prisoner of Cimlye. While we left them in a good place, with no pressing need for any sequel, I am quite fond of these characters and that setting. In addition, I have always wanted to see Taef launched on his career as a college professor in archaeology. And while I don’t think this story will see his career actually launched, it will at least see him to Jarpara and its famous university.
The story is a simple, lighthearted travelogue, as the title suggests. We meet a few people, some new, some old, and have a few minor alarms and excursions. I always like to try to do something new in every new story, and in this story I’m writing about newly married couples, which would be a first for me. The chase is over. The challenge is to write some nice, sharp, and witty Nick & Nora style dialog within and between the two couples. Alas, there’s not much of that in the first draft so far. No reason to panic just yet, my first draft is all about the story, the second is about style, i.e. how it is written, so hopefully I’ll be able to insert some of the wit and charm that I set out to write in the second and third drafts.
I have no set timeline for finishing or releasing this story. In theory I could finish the first draft with a month’s writing. In theory. However, I was writing this story more or less as I went along, and I really don’t like writing that way. I like it when I have the story entirely in mind so that I can just sit down every day and put it into words. I have three main scenes/episodes yet to write, but the last one is only an idea, not a fleshed out episode, and I want to flesh it out before continuing, so I’ve paused my work on this story until I have the rest of it well in mind.
However, having just release The Aerie of a Pirate Prince at the end of September, and with The Girl on the Kerb ready to go just as soon as it is rejected by traditional publishers – sometime early in spring 2023, I have no pressing need to get this story done, so I can take my time to get those final episodes in mind. I’m thinking it might end up being a fall of 2023 release. One reason for this long delay is that I’m putting my imagination to work to dream up with a new standalone novel that I’m hoping to begin writing after the holidays.
Earlier this week I put a working title to it; Chantiere House. Les Dessard, our narrator finds himself inheriting the chateau of Chantiere along with the ghost of his great, great grandfather who disappeared 11 years prior, and was only now declared legally dead. The story concerns the mystery of his disappearance, and presumed death, which his ghost has no recollection of.
At least that’s where it stands now. I still don’t actually have a story. I only have several characters and a setting and a situation to work with. It will, however be a “fantasy” novel for marketing purposes. Fantasy in quotation marks because I really can’t bring myself to write real magic. As in Beneath the Lanterns, the fantasy elements – for example the ghost – will be fantasy because the narrator is unaware of the advanced technology that creates the “magic.” The story will in fact, be set in my standard “universe” that includes all my stories save A Summer in Amber, Some Day Days, and A Night on Isvalar. It will be set on a planet called “Fair” that has been settled by stasis ships, like Dara in Sailing to Redoubt, and the original Nine Star Nebula worlds. However this settlement and their origins have devolved into a founding myth, the Arcane Age. And the original tech will have been largely – but not completely forgotten, remembered only as the Arcane magic. Those who still know the now secret truth and still retain remnants of the technology which have been passed down through a dozen generations, are known as the scholar arcane. The families of the scholar arcane now secretly wield the power within the government of Fair, though not without rivalry between them. I have the beginning chapters in mind, but the heart of the story, the fact that the Grandfather did something to bring some of the hidden Families Arcane down on him has yet to be hammered out. I suspect that this will be a mystery story more than an adventure story. I am guardedly confident that I can come up with that story, but until I do, this is very much a bird in the bush rather than in the hand. It may turn out to be a dead end. We’ll see.
So that’s were we’re at. I have one novel finished and ready for release in late 1Q or early 2Q 2023. One novella/short novel about half written, with about two months of work left to do on it. And one new long standalone novel with several of the opening chapters loosely sketched out in my mind. In short, I can keep as busy as I care to.
No comments:
Post a Comment