Happy Autumn, everybody!
News
I recently returned from my first ever overseas trip! We went to the UK, and got quite sick almost immediately. Despite feeling like ass for most of the trip, we have no regrets. Very glad we went. I was a little luckier than my husband in that The Thing lasted longer for me but was, overall, milder. I don’t think the worst of it hit me until after we got home. He was quite miserable at the midpoint of the journey, and didn’t get to experience much of Glasgow. Reason to go back, I suppose.
Books
I took Lynda Barry’s Making Comics with me and am still reading it. I’ll start working through the exercises soon, as well as returning to Alphonso Dunn’s Pen & Ink Drawing. He has a great YouTube channel. It got me to thinking I might blog some highlights from the trip in graphic form, rather than just writing them out.
In terms of fiction, I recently listened to the audio presentations of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Shadow of the Leviathan, The Tainted Cup and Cup of Corruption and they blew me away. The characters bear a loose resemblance to Holmes and Watson (very loose) and the world-building is just astonishing. Such a deep, rich world and so different from anything I’ve ever encountered before. It’s also a seriously genre-bending book. I suppose you’d have to call it secondary world fantasy, but there’s no magic. Or is there? Because, they things the people in the Empire of Khanum call science are impossible. At least, impossible here on Earth, but clearly not in the world of the books. Also, they’re murder mysteries.
Writing
The writing of The Novel That Needs a Better Name has begun. Actually, it began in 2018 as a short story, but I’m now working on the historical storyline. Then I’ll flesh out the modern day storyline of the short story, and then tie them both together (in theory). I’m approaching it as three novelettes, which makes the project far less daunting, as I’ve written novelettes before.
The process so far is …not pretty. The first draft of the historical novelette is largely just me telling the events of the story, which no effort at much dialogue, description, or even a final order of scenes, never mind a writing style appropriate for the 18th century. But, it’s the way it has to be done, because if I continue to worry about those implementation details, as we’d say in my day job, it will never get out of my head. I did write a scene map, but I haven’t been using it. It’ll just slow me down.
Fiction
Now, here’s a weird thing for you. I thought I might start posting some of my more experimental art (like the graphics mentioned above), flash fiction, maybe even some poetry (we’ll see). This was written from a Mur Lafferty prompt.