When I finish a project that I tend to
work on, well, everything. I do that, then, eventually, something kind
of surfaces and comes to the forefront and I begin working on that
exclusively until I finish it.
So it went after State of Chaos.
This time things have turned out a bit different. What I've ended up
doing is combining projects. I had several ideas, but none of them
seemed to have enough meat on the bones to make a novel length story out
of.
The original (and long overdue) idea was pretty simple. The
one character that's been under-appreciated throughout the Chaos books
is Tina, hands down. There's a reason for that, Tina is different folks.
Now I'm paraphrasing here, but my editors all know that the original intent of State of Chaos
was to write a book about Tina. The working directory that we shared
all the files in was, in fact, called 'Tina'. We'd finished the editing
and, of course, the ribbing began, "So are you actually going to write a
book about Tina next time?" (I'm sure it was much snarkier that that)
I replied, "I don't know if I can do it. Tina isn't like us. She doesn't think like we do. She see's the world in sound,
She computes musical equations in her head like we do algebra. How do
you describe someone like that? How do you get in the head of an
adolescent girl who just ain't normal? You'd need Barbar for that."
--Insert pregnant pause here--
"So ask her."
I
won't say I know Barbar well, but she has sent me a couple of nice
comments on my stories, and I certainly admire her work. So with some
trepidation I did just that.
The reply I received was absolutely stunning. She wrote me a 500 word short that showed me exactly what I should be doing. The Rhythm of Her Soul
was the first thing that I tried based on what she sent me. The actual
500 word short has already been incorporated into the larger story.
That
being said I was already playing around with another Chaos story, it
had no real plot, but I had some fun ideas for scenes and I had written
quite a few. If you have read The Rhythm of Her Soul then you
know that the writing in that story is rather intense. At first I
thought I was going to write an entire novel that way. No, no, no. The
human brain can't do it in my normal style of writing. Moving a story
into and out of Tina's rather weird point of view is jarring. It
will give you a headache, staying there too long is likewise just a bit
like living down a rabbit-hole. Interesting and exciting ideas, but
the readability definitely was suffering.
The current story is a
combined one. At the beginning of each chapter is a scene out of Tina's
life. These scenes progress chronologically alongside the narrative of
what you might think of as Chaos 4 until the two stories intersect at
the climax. Oh, and it starts when she's three. I'd say that project is about 40% done.
Which
brings us to the weird stuff. I'm actually writing two things, still.
The second ... oh boy. A three book series that's kind of a, erm,
post-apocalyptic fairytale reboot? Think even parts Kick Ass, Mad Max, and Peter Pan. Indeed, maybe a lot of Peter Pan.
You see Tinkerbell tries to shoot Peter .... aww hell, you guys aren't
going to believe this stuff until you read it. Its a good story and it
will most likely be a straight YA story. Well that's if i can
get Bell to actually wear clothes... *sigh*. (Bell, as I'm writing
now, is kind of on a 'nudist strike'.)
Humor might just possibly be involved. There will be pirates, and well, that makes it all worth while.
That's
probably about 30% into book one now. It's a bit harder in some ways.
Bell can't speak, and that's an interesting degree of difficulty for
someone who relies on dialog as much as I do, but she is easily the most
awesome character I've written (sorry Anita). Pete is entirely to much
like Tony right now and I'm constantly working on that and ways to make
and keep my own pack of lost boys interesting. Wendy is too generic
and that needs work as well. Come to think of it Wendy was always a bit
bland wasn't she? Oh well, I'll fix that....
Anyway I thought I'd come up for air and let you know what I'm up to.
Ezzy
Note: If you don't know about Barbar and her excellent series about Bec, an adolescent with just a slightly different outlook on things from, well, normal young teenage girls (is that possible?) you can find it for the amazingly low price of FREE! at Beyond the far Horizon (free registration required, no ads, no spam). While you're there, hang around and check out the excellent sci-fi works of Bruce Brettenhaur and the site's owner Gina Marie Wylie. I think I left an old copy of Anita's Rescue there, but it's outdated.
