There is something you may not know about the writing process.
The rules of writing have been discussed at length in various places around the Internet. But perhaps a semi-unwritten one is that you have to write as much as you can, as fast as you can, even when you don’t want to. Writing is, after all, a job, and none of us necessarily want to work every hour of every day. But if you want to finish your shit, you have to work at it, even when the notion is less than appealing.
That’s what I did yesterday. I felt a little stuck in Cold Streets. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to resolve a scene. But I sat down, picked an option, and ran with it. 2810 words later I stood up and stretched. The dam had broken, and words were flowing again. I feel back on track, because I made myself write when it wasn’t appealing to me. That’s what you have to do when you’re a writer.
I may do some groundwork this weekend for one of the other projects. I’m still trying to decide which one, though. A lot of the preliminary stuff for Godslayer is already done considering the previous drafts, but there will be a lot of changes to come in that. The other project, the untitled sci-fi thing, is very nascent, with only a couple of short stories to work off of for now, but I feel there’s a great deal of potential and I’m going to want to explore it. Maybe just jot down some notes? We’ll see.
Either way I hope to continue to be productive over the weekend. I don’t want to lose this momentum.
Cold Streets is a slow burner. By that, I mean it’s taking me a while to really get set on fire over it. I’m working on it, and I like what’s happening so far, I just haven’t carved out a great deal of time lately to put more words in sequence. I have a move coming up in the near future, and that’s going to eat in to my writing time. I have books and clothes to donate, old geegaws to bequeath to others, and the current place needs some sprucing.
My mind hasn’t been idle, though. What was once going to be a multi-novel fantasy series will, I believe, get compressed into one epic volume. After reading some other stories and watching a couple old favorite films, it occurs to me that not everything needs to be a serial. Not ever story needs a sequel. So Asherian and his world of Acradea will appear in a single novel. And, based on the timbre and themes of the rewrite, and how much more of the story I will be including from the very beginning, it’s getting yet another title change. For the time being, I’m calling it Godslayer.
Somewhere between the novellas of Morgan & Seth’s escapades and this fantasy epic, I want to work on a smaller novel, or perhaps novels, with a sci-fi bent. The arrival of the new version of Netrunner on my back step combined with classics like Blade Runner remind me that the future doesn’t necessarily have to be chrome-plated and shiny, or at least if it is, it need not necessarily be that way for everybody. What I like about futures with an even slightly dystopian bent is that super-advanced technologies, be they androids so life-like they act and feel like humans or faster-than-light travel or interstellar colonization, feel matter-of-fact, an aspect of everyday life that you don’t have to spend pages upon pages describing. And I’ve already written a couple of well-received shortstories with this sort of bent, and I’m interested in seeing how I could expand the idea. Alien races, perhaps? Maybe a distant but superficially benevolent overlord whose dictates are at least partially responsible for the crapsack world our characters find themselves in? This bears further investigation.
More on these ideas to come. Also to come, more reviews of Cold Iron as well as some other surprises! Stay tuned.
I’d like to say I’ve made a lot more progress on Cold Streets than I have. The fact of the matter is, this week has been pretty disastrous in terms of time management in general and working around the dayjob in particular. Thankfully, there’s a long weekend ahead and I plan on taking advantage of the time to get more work done on Cold Streets.
The good news there is that I do have an outline for it, and sketches in my head of the new characters, along with expansions on the established ones. I need to keep up the quick pace of the story and maintain the noir feel of things while increasing the scope and raising the stakes. I’m pretty sure I have ways to do that, and I am looking forward to writing more of it.
Time, unfortunately, is always in motion, and it can be difficult to carve out chunks of it for yourself when the target keeps moving. I’ll get it, though. This week was just bad.
In lieu of the usual flash fiction challenge, as Chuck is setting up a rather interesting one for next week, here’s a sneak preview at the opening to Cold Streets, sequel to the novella Cold Iron which is available now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the e-reader of your preference. Enjoy.
He probably thought he was going to get lucky. What he got was bitten.
Bethany savored the taste of him as she sat beside him in the back of her limo, her hands on his shoulders and her fangs in his neck. He offered no resistance, made no discernible noise. As much as Bethany enjoyed the occasional meal being fully conscious of the razor’s edge between pleasure and pain provided by her bite, she didn’t have the time to make this hapless businessman acquainted with the benefits of her friendship. A little special secretion dulled his senses better than a whole bottle of the cheap whiskey he’d been pounding at the bar. She could taste it in his blood, and as much as she detested bottom shelf swill, there was something deliciously decadent about a bit of sleaze like this.
She didn’t want to kill him. Not that she had any sort of sympathy for this type of corporate human, it would simply be too much of a mess. She slowly drew her fangs out of his skin, flexed her tongue to coax a little more of the sour-tasting saliva into her mouth, and licked his wounds. They closed slowly, leaving him disheveled and disoriented, but physically unharmed. His dizziness and hard-on would fade, but he’d have no specific memory of what she did to him.
She kicked open the slightly ajar door of the limo and pushed him onto the sidewalk. His unfocused eyes tried to fix on her. She blew him a kiss and slammed the door.
“Drive.”
The limo took off into the street. Bethany leaned back and sighed. The feeling of warm, live blood moving through her veins never got old. Humans had a saying about sex being like pizza, in that it was very rare for it to be truly bad, and in her mind, Bethany equated feeding to both things. She could eat pizza, even if she got nothing from it, and sex still had some benefits, but neither of them did what fresh blood could for her. Her eyes closed and she languished in the feeling, the vitality, letting it electrify her limbs and invigorate her senses. She loved how the blood made her feel, how it compelled her to fight and fuck and feed even more, how even a sleazy lowlife like that one could make her come alive.
“You have a little on you.”
Her eyes opened and she looked towards the front of the limo. The divider was down between her and the driver, and he’d adjusted the rear view mirror to look at her. She saw his hazel eyes gazing at her, and caught a glimpse of herself. The businessman meal had clumsily unbuttoned most of her blouse, her long red hair was a little disheveled, and splotches of red were showing on her chin and collarbone. She reached for a towel near the miniature bar on one side of the limo, dabbing at the blood until it was gone. She sat back and fixed up her blouse and hair.
