It's been a while, hasn't it? Yeah, I know. I've spent the past two months or so being more-or-less unproductive. I have been editing novels, and playing far too many video games. Should I tell you about the gaming thing? I figure I'll get around to that at some point. How about some ramblings about The Alternative stuff instead.
I've been working on getting a pitch together, and that's not really going so well. I know what I want to tell people about in regards to the work of fiction that I've been beating up for the past four years, but there isn't really an elegant way to say "giant cast gets swept into interstellar war when what they really want is to steal things, drink coffee, and enjoy each others company" and I know that doesn't sound exciting.
So between editing and screaming at the pitch, I've been getting the ball rolling on the next couple of books. Alt. 2: Road to the West is pretty much planned. It's ready to go into the first draft as soon as I find the heart to jump into that fire again. I'm thinking that April is the time for such chaos, and I've been doing some warm up pre-writing to get ready for it. I think that if I have a rough version of the first two or three chapters, I can start out by rewriting all of that nonsense and get into the stuff I've been wanting to write for years. Seriously. I have been longing to write this book for years, and I know almost every beat of the story, and I'm ready to get Celes onto the page.
Yes, I realize that I made it sound like I'm doing more than I just said. Well, I am. I've been working on getting Book III: The Bookening into shape. I've got a few things in mind, probably inspired by the fact that the last two sci-fi novels I've read have been detective story type ordeals. I have a cast coming together. The problem I seem to be having comes from the fact that I'm spoiling the spoiler spoiler with the spoilering spoiled spoiler! I need someone to shout this plot to that could help me out. It's a giant mess, and I don't know how to fix it.
Another thing that keeps weighing on my mind is the fact that Crusader is still unpublished, and sitting on my coffee table weeping. It's teetering on the edge of third draft, and I don't know how I feel about it right now. I want to like it, because of the things that I tried while writing it, but on the other hand, I completely detest the mess that I made. I don't have an objective enough reader on hand to determine whether its the train wreck I see, or the quality work of fantasy that Jo does.
Oh, and I'm considering a Kickstarter for it.
Yeah, I know everyone is doing that kind of thing these days, but it would help pay for a couple of passes by a professional editor, and I could then e-pub the bloody thing and maybe use it as a method to look better in the view of agents and publishers. Or worse. After all, how many idiots self-publish mediocre novels these days.
But then again, there are enough books in that miserable supernatural romance section at Barnes and Nobel.
What was the purpose of this post again? To remember how much of a failure that I feel like as a writer? Maybe. Perhaps it was to get me typing before I look into my notes for Alternative and consider what I'm going to do next. It's my hope to publish the ten stories I think it will take to tell the story of The Alternative before I die. Here's hoping I get the chance.
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