Category: New Projects

Darkness and Light

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So on Sunday morning as I was lying in bed, having just woken but too lazy to get up and feed the cats just yet, I started thinking about a new way to approach writing MU4. I’ve written at least three or four different openings, and yet none of them felt quite right. The current one is close to what I need…but the scene itself happens way too early in the story. I needed something to build up to that.

The good thing about lying there and letting my thoughts quietly meander for a bit is that I wasn’t trying so hard to figure it out this time. And that’s when it occurred to me: I needed to return to the original theme of the trilogy in order to move forward. That theme, of course, was balance. One character playing the role of spiritual balance to another. One action balancing out another. One dwelling in darkness, the other in light. This story focuses more on internal balances than spiritual or religious ones, even though those two still play an important part in the Mendaihu Universe.

The focus here, then, is on my two main characters: one whose life is chaos and wishes for order, and one whose life is rigid order and wishes for freedom. Both have a common goal of mental, emotional and spiritual balance, even though they’re coming from complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Which of course inspires the same question I had for Denni and Saisshalé in the trilogy: what is the red string that bonds them together? Are they enemies or are they allies? Are they bound to negate each other’s strengths, or are they to work together to become even stronger?

The good thing about this, even as I lay there with one cat staring impatiently at me and my brain in dire need of caffeine, is that this has gotten me even closer to the story I want to tell here. And that’s what I’ve been waiting for. All I need to do is start it.

Going deep again…?

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Whenever I think about the Bridgetown Trilogy and the Mendaihu Universe, I almost always wonder if I’ll ever get around to writing something with that level of worldbuilding. Theadia certainly comes close, but that project’s a different beast altogether. While it certainly has an ensemble cast and multiple worlds, it doesn’t have its own conlang or its own highly detailed mythos. It’s a big story, but it’s not a part of a bigger universe like the MU is.

The MU is still alive and kicking somewhere in the back of my thoughts, and I still want to write more stories in that universe, but I’ve come to the realization that if I’m going to do it right, I’m going to have to go in deep once more. And I’m perfectly willing to do that once I allow myself to take that dive again. [And I will not complain one bit if that includes the music side of things, mixtapes and all. That was one of the best parts of the project!]

As you may remember, I deliberately chose to bounce away from that kind of thing because, up to 2015, that’s pretty much all I knew in terms of novel writing projects. Everything had to be a full-immersion, years-long intensity, and I needed not to do that for a while. I needed to know how to write something standalone and concise. Partly to prove to myself that I could do it, and partly because I knew that not all of my newer story ideas would translate well into that long of a format.

I knew I’d come back to the longer form sooner or later. I’ve often said it’s a format I truly enjoy writing. But in the several attempts in writing the temporarily-titled-MU4 novel, each time felt like I wasn’t doing it justice. The deep immersion wasn’t there, only a reflection of the past style. I wasn’t allowing myself that level of focus and, let’s face it, obsession. So it kept getting pushed to the back burner.

This will all eventually change, I hope. I’m not sure when, and I’m not sure how. Perhaps it’ll be a change in my writing schedule, better and more creative use of my break times at work, or perhaps it’ll be something else altogether. Who knows? I may even start a new extended universe instead…?

Hrrmm…

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Yeah, I think I’m more than a bit out of practice when it comes to writing bigger stories. It’s been far too long since I’ve written in this style, I think. But I’m being patient and hoping that it all works out eventually. It’ll come back to me.

Over this past week I’ve been trying to write an all-new chapter for Theadia that introduces an important secondary character, but I know that this very rough draft is coming out a little, well…rough. I know I could do better, and I’m thinking I might need to give this another go-round before I move on to the next chapter. I think I’m more annoyed that my word count plummeted to about three hundred words a session when usually they’re an easy eight hundred or so. [It doesn’t help that I’ll find myself easily distracted by music and, er, blogging things like this.] But I’m not giving up.

I’m reminding myself that I’ve been in this situation several times in the past, where my word count can fluctuate at any point in time, where I might struggle to get a single scene done one day and breeze through another one the next. It’s just how the writing biz is. And no, I’m not going to use AI to help me, as this is actually my favorite part of writing! Heh.

I’ll get through it, one way or another.

Into the new universe

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So I’m all caught up with the Queen Ophelia’s War spot-check edits and playing around with cover art, which means…I can finally start work on Theadia! WOOOO!

I figured I’d wait out the end of the month just to get a breather and relax a bit (especially since the Day Job has been a bit busy as of late). Why not start fresh on a new week, new day, new month? No real reason other than what the hell, yeah? Besides, it was great to have a few days off from creativity so I could catch up with real life and other things, but it’s time to get started once again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about making my writing sessions a little more stable as well. Not that they’re bad now, but I just want be a bit more dedicated to it than I’ve been over the last few years. I’m pretty good at working on something daily, but I think I’ve let myself have more than a few Don’t Wanna days than I really should have. I also miss getting stuck deep in on big projects, and it’s been quite a long time since I’ve really allowed myself to do that. Especially with a completely new project that has nothing to do with the Mendaihu Universe.

There’s a big world there in the Theadia Universe. Let’s go see what happens in it.

Stuff to listen to…?

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Not gonna lie, I’m totally looking forward to finding some new albums that could get some heavy rotation during my upcoming writing sessions for Theadia. Each project has had its own playlists and/or albums that become their de facto soundtrack, and I’m sure this one will be no different.

The only difference here, I think, is that I want these albums to have more staying power than the ones tied to my post-trilogy work. There are some records that will always be tied in with the trilogy (And You Think You Know What Life’s About, Sea Change, Fantastic Planet, and so on), and Diwa & Kaffi had The Sound of Arrows’ Stay Free, but that’s about it. I’m not trying to shoehorn any albums into this new project, mind you…I’m just wondering if there’s going to be any that will be as closely tied.

Which brings me to my wanting to pay a little more attention to the music I’ve been listening to. I’ve said previously that the last few years have felt more like I’d focused more on acquisition than connection, and I want to change that. And one of the ways to make that happen is to actively return to some of these albums. That’s what I did in the Belfry back in the day: I’d start off each session putting on a specific cd I wanted to hear to get myself in the mood. Sometimes it was a new release, other times it was an old classic. It really did depend (and still does) on the scene I was about to work on.

I have the music library, I just need to choose what I want to hear.

Getting away with it

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In Theadia, our two main characters are computer nerds. However, I’m trying to avoid as much techspeak infodumping as I can. Can it be done?

That’s a good question. I mean, I’m basing their work background on my own experience at the Former Day Job — basically working behind the scenes as code checkers to make sure system are working the way they’re supposed to work, and to figure out solutions when they’re not. And believe you me, I did a LOT of that over the fourteen years I was there. And if I learned anything, it’s that there are indeed code geeks out there who are not savants but instead kinda sorta know what they’re doing and hope for the best. That is what the leads in my novel are about: they’re good at it, but it really is all held together with sticky tape and dreams most of the time.

This upcoming project is very much like that: you’re probably not going to see the stock characters of the introvert genius who saves the day, but you’ll definitely see the common citizen who’s hoping it doesn’t all go kerflooey at the worst possible moment. I like the idea that the world is not just imperfect, it’s messy as hell, and we’re all pretending that we have it under control. Theadia is about people who aren’t in charge, but do know what they’re doing. Sort of.

Getting back to the question, I do in fact have a few techspeak infodumping scenes, but they’re not the kind you’re expecting. Again, I based it on my own experience: the most common reason for system failure at my FDJ was either someone making a really stupid mistake upstream (or just plain not knowing what they’re doing), or someone forgetting that what works on the shiny and clean test platform will trip up in the messy and chaotic live platform. I have a few scenes not just explaining this, but having my two mains exploit it. The trick isn’t so much hacking in, it’s not getting caught. And if you know how and where to go…

Travel

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[Image courtesy of aas587 on Dribbble]

I’ve noticed that several of my stories contain travel in one way or another, many of them to alternate realities and different galaxies and universes. It’s something I’d been fascinated by since I started the Mendaihu Universe back in the day. Sometimes the travel is metaphysical: the ‘stepping into Light’ of the trilogy is essentially the inversion of astral travel. Sometimes it’s magical, like the weave in In My Blue World, where special blades cut the lattice between universes and create a temporary connection. And in Queen Ophelia’s War, it’s good old fashioned fantasy magic powers weaving a connection between established portals. [You could say even Diwa & Kaffi focuses on travel, considering tintrite flight is a major theme.]

As for Theadia…? Well, I’m finally going for the gold and using the time-honored hard-sf subspace portal. And this time it’s not just a useful function within the story, it’s an important part of the story in and of itself: part of the conflict does indeed involve travel infrastructure! Because I AM A HUGE NERD. [Well, obviously it’s a lot more than that but I’m trying not to give too much away.] I’ll admit that I’m not going too deep into the physics and the theoreticals of space travel, because that way lies madness. I’m just going deep enough to make it believable, complete with red tape, mismanagement and all that ugly bureaucratic nonsense.

All I’ll say is this: when your giant and well-loved station uses a popular and heavily used subspace gate hub, orbits around its own cozy little ball of dirt that didn’t need terraforming and is a beloved tourist destination, and is celebrating its fiftieth year of independence from its former owners who still aren’t too happy about that, there’s going to be a lot of moving parts that are going to need people who know what they’re doing. Especially when said former owners have been thinking about taking it back by force.

Prep Work

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(Image courtesy of Starship Operators, a fun and unique anime I recommend.)

Whenever I have a spare moment and I’m not focusing on the final preparation of Queen Ophelia’s War, I’ve been preparing for my eventual restart/rewrite of Theadia. Why am I doing this when I have most of the original version written, you ask? Good question, that.

The easy answer is that I’m doing it the same way I wrote the Bridgetown Trilogy. Whatever is about to unfold in this restart/rewrite won’t be exactly the same as that version, just as the trilogy takes what I’d started in The Phoenix Effect and pushed it in a different and much better direction.

The more convoluted answer is that I’ve chosen to expand on several plot points, characters and situations that I’d laid out in the original Theadia. I’ve been finding moments during lulls in my work shift, just like back in the day, to write down my thoughts on how to do this. Certain secondary characters will have a much deeper and richer background and even their own plot lines. While it will still focus on the two main characters — after all, they are not just the instigators of the story but what drives the rest of the main cast — I want to know more about the rest of this universe.

Thus, I’m doing what I did with the trilogy: I’m doing a world building deep dive. Something I haven’t done for quite a number of years. It makes sense for me to do this, considering this is a subgenre I don’t have nearly as much experience writing. [It’s not that I’m a ‘never say no’ writer…I’m more of the ‘I wonder if I could pull this off, let’s try it’ kind.] And if I’m going to do it justice, I want to do my homework.

The current version does work…but there are worrying moments of Handwavium and This Happens Offscreen, and I’d rather not go that route. The best way to fix this, in my experience, is to do that deep dive. I’ll do a bit of research, sure, but I also want this story as believable as possible without getting lost in super-heavy hard-sf techspeak. While it exists, that’s not what the story is about; the project’s focus has always been about the people behind the tech, both the ones who create it and the ones who use it, who may not exactly understand all of it but might at least understand how it works to some degree. [I’ve often joked that this project is my anti-Cory Doctorow story, in which I try to avoid techspeak infodumps as much as I can and still get away with it.]

Will I pull it off? Well, I won’t know until I write it, will I?

Getting there

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Unfortunately I’m at the ‘Oh god this sucks why did I even write this drivel’ point in Queen Ophelia’s War, and I’m doing my best to ignore those lingering doubts. I know the reasons why I’m feeling that way, and it’s not because it is drivel…it’s because I’m twitching to get that rewrite of Theadia started. I just want to quit this project and jump into the next one.

So basically I’m tempering myself with a bit of patience and stubborn will to get this novel done first before I dedicate the bulk of my time to that one. [There’s also the fact that I really want to write the romcom as well, but I’ll get to that one soon enough. There’s less impatience felt in getting that one started.] Besides, I’m into Act III now, which means that I’m right on schedule and should hopefully be done by the end of the month.

I always seem to hit this point when I reach the final third of my projects, to be honest. I just want it done! And I’m quite sure there are other writers who feel the same way. All I need to do is see it through to the end and release it out into the world when I’m done.

I’m getting there…I just need to be patient.

here we go again

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So the other day while I was at work, I’d started playing around with ideas for Theadia, and I started thinking: well, as much as I love it, I still feel I’ve left a lot out. Too many moments where important things happen but only seen from one person’s oblique points of view. Conflict with muted payoff. Too many actions that lack the backstory other than “…then this happens but no one yet knows why” that deserve a much deeper examination. In other words, it’s great, but it certainly could be a whole lot better. And I want to put in that extra work to make it the best.

In other words, this is exactly what I’d done when I’d rewritten The Phoenix Effect as the Bridgetown Trilogy. It went from something that was good and I’d turned it into something great that I’m proud of.

In other words, Theadia may end up another large-scale, extended-cast trilogy if I play my cards right.

Sure, I still need to finish off Queen Ophelia’s War first — I think I’m about two thirds of the way there, so I’m on schedule for that one — but I’m already starting to do the pre-writing paperwork for Theadia now. Extended storylines and subplots for certain characters. I may not know how to successfully write a space opera, let alone write characters that serve part of a military role, but I already know that this one isn’t going to be a dense war-in-space story, and nor is it going to be a uber-savvy tech-nerd story either. It’s its own thing in its own reality, just like the Mendaihu Universe. And I think I’ve gotten pretty good at creating that kind of thing. And those are the things I love writing.

Will this end in tears? Who knows. But I’m willing to put in the work.