Went to a writing meetup tonight and wrote 1700 words of a brand new short story.
So what I've got now is: 1) a world that I've created and have a pretty good sense of, and 2) two really good characters, and so I can start pounding out short stories within that framework. The adventures of Rex Jaxon, private eye, and Jasmine Orpeth (her last name still under debate), master hacker and datamancer, in the sci-fantasy world of Allanaland (name still under debate), a world where magic and technology coexist and where I shamelessly attempt to ape the humor of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett within a "weird-slipstream" cross-genre thingamajig inspired by the mad surrealistic genius of China Mieville (a genius I could never hope to even begin to approach).
Edited to add:
A little more detail.
I've been working on world-building for a while now, first creating Chelandia, where my latest stalled novel takes place, and then modifying Chelandia into something a little less unwieldy and creating Allanaland. This is now the second short story I'll have written in the Allanaland universe, which feels like a place I can have a lot of fun. I've also decided to stop trying to write novels for now, and just focus on these kind of episodic short stories. I've got a lot of wiggle room within my framework but also a structure that I can build off of.
Edited to add:
A little more detail.
I've been working on world-building for a while now, first creating Chelandia, where my latest stalled novel takes place, and then modifying Chelandia into something a little less unwieldy and creating Allanaland. This is now the second short story I'll have written in the Allanaland universe, which feels like a place I can have a lot of fun. I've also decided to stop trying to write novels for now, and just focus on these kind of episodic short stories. I've got a lot of wiggle room within my framework but also a structure that I can build off of.
So that's what I'm up to.
Oh, and unfortunately, I won't be posting excerpts of these here because I think I'm aiming at creating an Allanaland Anthology book collecting these short stories, and I'll want to try to get that published. Publishers are picky about what you publish on the internet before you submit it for publication, although somehow a lot of people do just sort of get their websites turned into books, so I'm not sure how that works.
Anyway. Bit of a ramble. Here's to 2017, the year It All Comes Together for me. Right? Right.
Oh, and unfortunately, I won't be posting excerpts of these here because I think I'm aiming at creating an Allanaland Anthology book collecting these short stories, and I'll want to try to get that published. Publishers are picky about what you publish on the internet before you submit it for publication, although somehow a lot of people do just sort of get their websites turned into books, so I'm not sure how that works.
Anyway. Bit of a ramble. Here's to 2017, the year It All Comes Together for me. Right? Right.
