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A place for pointless news and disjointed personal musings. |
| This blog is merely for tracking my progress and keeping my potential readers up-to-date on the things going on with my work. |
| Taking a short break from my work on The Krimson Traitor (I wrote like 600 words of dialog today; I'm rather proud of myself), I'd actually like to talk a little about the future. Specifically, the big original story projects I have lined up for when The Krimson Traitor is either done and over with or when I feel confident enough in my storytelling skills to start working on them. There are four of them all together, starting with: -Mythryn: This is the "detective drama about a sarcastic talking crow" that I make mention of in my bio, and it's the project I plan to begin writing immediately after The Krimson Traitor. I actually have a proper back-of-the-book plot synopsis written in my story notes for this one, so I'll just paste that here to give you a taste: It’s said that crows are among the most intelligent of all creatures, but Mythryn – “Ryn” for short – is smart even among crows, with a talent for finding the truth that no bird or beast can match. Making the most of her skills, she plies her trade as a freelance detective in the shining, steam-powered, crime-ridden metropolis of Brass Valley, where she’s gained both a great deal of fame among the populace, and infamy among the criminal and powerful. When an old colleague in the city Constabulary approaches her for help on a recent series of high-profile murders, she readily accepts, expecting another routine upstaging of conventional law enforcement, only to quickly find herself thrown into another mystery far more dangerous and ancient than even she could have ever imagined. The closest series that I could liken the setting to is Kathryn Lasky's Guardians of Ga'Hoole, since, like in Ga'Hoole, the animals of this world all retain realistic sizes and anatomies. There are differences too, of course, such is the fact that the creatures in this setting are a bit more "civilized" than in Ga'hoole, organizing proper multi-species city-states and nations. The relative intelligences of all the different animal species are also intended to be more realistic. So instead of owls (which are actually rather dull in real life) being inexplicably smarter than every other animal, the real geniuses of the bird world would be things like crows, ravens, magpies, and parrots. -Free Fox: This is my pet project of sorts; a sprawling science fiction series that I've been tossing around in my head for about as long as I've considered becoming a writer. The crux of the setting in its current incarnation is that it takes place in an alternate version of Earth where humans have existed for tens of thousands of years alongside a number of other sapient species; the free-spirited fruit bat-like Shiah, the bird-like warrior Therans, the peaceful arachnids, and a variety of other species in the backstory that will have either gone extinct or gone into hiding long before the main story starts. The first arc would be told as the written memoirs of the series' main protagonist (an eccentric human criminal-turned-military assassin named Zero), telling the tales of his exploits in saving the world from a series of tyrants and dangerous monsters. To tell the truth, as much as I really really want to work on this story, I'm kind of afraid to. It's not the scope of the story that scares me, it's the protagonist; Zero. He's just so unabashedly extraordinary in every sense of the word, I'm afraid that if I don't handle his character very delicately, he could just end up becoming a big fat Gary Stu of the highest caliber instead of just being amusing and fun the way I intend. So, this project will remain on the back burner until I trust myself to not screw it up. -Shade Prince (working title): This is a relatively new idea which I haven't expanded much on, but the basic idea is that a portal has opened to a world of terrifying monsters (called "Hell"), allowing the denizens of this Hell to mingle freely with humans. The protagonist would be a woman (who I haven't named yet) who has an unhealthy obsession with all things Hellish, and who eventually winds up falling in love with an enigmatic creature made of living shadow (the titular "Shade Prince"). Basically, it would be Twilight with a shadow creature, except unlike Twilight (which glorifies Bella's emotionally-stunted sate), this story would be all about exploring and addressing the deep psychological problems that are at the heart of the protagonist's self-destructive obsession with Hell. -Untitled Inter-Dimensional Nonsense: This is an idea so recent that I haven't even thought of a title for it yet. The basic concept is that in this world there are certain individuals (called "Conduits") who are capable of summoning various types of inter-dimensional creature into our dimension. I haven't developed the plot much beyond the fact that the protagonist will be female and that she'll be of a particularly rare and potent type of Conduit. I also haven't decided if I want "dimensions" in this context to mean the real-world spacial dimensions (in which case I'd have to do a bit more research on the subject, which could take a while since I'm not mathematically inclined), or the more fantastical Lovecraftian horror sort of dimension. I'm also not sure what I'd do in terms of theme that hasn't already been done to death in things like X-Men and Frozen. |
| While we're waiting for Chapter 2 of The Krimson Traitor (which I'm working on, I swear; the Word document is open right now, even), I thought I would discuss an interesting hypothetical question: Why? Specifically, why am I writing a fanfiction, when I could just as easily be writing something original? It is, after all, my goal to write original stories some day, and I have no shortage of concepts for those future projects. Then there's the kicker; I don't even read fanfiction. Once I got it into my head to start this project, I did look up some other Redwall fanfiction for reference, but that's the extent of it. Also, while I may do Krimson Traitor sequels some day, I don't ever plan on doing fanfics for any other series. So, why?: -I Need The Practice: You see, while I'm fairly confident in my abilities when it comes to the technical aspects of writing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, voice, etc.), I'm largely new to using those skills to tell actual stories. So, maybe I could take one of those concepts I have lined up and start typing away on it, but would it be any good? Or would I just be wasting one of the original settings I've worked so hard on to tell a cliched tale about an unlikable cast of Mary Sues? Fanfiction gives me a safe place to teach myself the basics of storytelling, so that once I get around to one of my original ideas, I may actually be able to do it justice. -It's Friggin' Redwall: I love Redwall. That might already be apparent since I've listed Redwall as one of my favourite book series in my bio, but it bears repeating; I love this series and everything that it's ever meant to me growing up. The original Redwall was quite literally the first real novel I ever read as a very young child, so it was that book that turned me into a reader and, ultimately, made me want to be a writer. This is also a series that, due to its very nature, really does make it easy to write good fanfiction. It's almost the same as writing an original story, since you can come up with your own unique cast and plot, just that all the world-building work has already been done for you. So there it is: my first story has to be fanfiction because I want the practice, and it has to be Redwall because no other series means as much to me or has the right format to support the kind of story I'd want to write. Now with that settled, back to writing about foxes flirting under a tree. |
| Chapter 2 of The Krimson Traitor is well under way; about 200 words in at the time of writing (for reference, the prologue was about 2,600 words, and Chapter 1 was about 1,900 words), and I'm likely to write even more before I go to bed tonight. So, barring any sudden unforeseen events or severe attacks of writer's block, this chapter should be in a releasable state before the end of the week. Also, on the subject of what I'm reading, I'm deciding to finally knuckle down and finish Yahtzee Croshaw's Jam. You see, I have a nasty habit of occasionally buying books, starting them, and then getting distracted partway through and not finishing them for months at a time. Other books on my To Be Finished list include Plague Dogs, Neuromancer, and Dune. |
Yep, it's basically done. All I have to do is go over it one more time to see if it needs any more clean-up work and I'll be releasing it as soon as possible!  I'll also be switching over to releasing the chapters in a novel format from now on instead of as separate static items. That should help keep my portfolio a bit cleaner. |
Not a whole lot of news on The Krimson Traitor currently, but it is coming along, a little bit every day. I did just come back from a trip to Barnes & Noble with a bit of inspiration to help speed up the process, however; a nice, shiny hardcover copy of David Petersen's The Black Axe. Mouse Guard is (perhaps unsurprisingly) one of my favourite comic series of all-time, and should provide enough gorgeously-illustrated, adventure-laden mousey goodness to keep me going for a while. |
| It appears that some anonymous soul was kind enough to gift me an upgraded membership, so I've decided to make the most of it by setting up this blog. First thing's first; my progress on The Krimson Traitor. Chapter 1 is currently underway and should hopefully be released soon. In fact, if I can avoid any severe cases of writer's block along the way, I'd like to make it my goal to release the chapters at a pace of about one per week, or at least something close to that. Whatever pace I maintain, however, I'm just excited to finally start getting into the actual plot of this thing. Hopefully it's at least not terrible. And big thanks to all the people who've welcomed me, encouraged me, given me things, or just generally acknowledged me at all these first few days. It's been great so far, and I really think I'm going to enjoy being a part of this community.  |
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