Long time since last post
I'm still working on The Blade of Time, which is currently sitting around 43,000 words. I will keep growing that novel, but in an effort to get myself writing more regularly I'm starting a second project alongside it. The Blade of Time is my primary project and I intend to get that fantasy novel finished and out the door well before the new one is done.
I've started working on Armor X (Armor Ten), which is a future-fantasy/sci-fi colonization story. This story is intended to be stand-alone from the beginning, but is a well established story in my mind. Alongside TBoT, I've been working on this since the mid 90s in my mind but am just now starting to put it down on paper/screen. Honestly, it may be fairly typical in some ways. It starts as a story about the world having been used up and colonials trying to move out to other worlds. There have been a total of ten missions preceding the Armor X mission. Armors I - IX, and the first mission called Expedition. Expedition was destroyed by a big chunk of rock flying through space, hence the following missions being "Armor" instead of "Expedition". Armor X is launched and a decade or so into flight the wakeup protocol is initiated - in the middle of space rather than inside of the intended system. Strange things start happening and the story follows the crew of Armor X investigating these happenings and eventually resolving the situation so that they can go on to colonization and tell Earth what's happened.
I have lots of thoughts for how to make it a fun story and look forward to writing it in between TBoT writing. Also, much better than the lame attempt to write that I had started with Where Angels Lie (which has been stored only on backup at this point... I don't think I'll miss it if I lose it) - I have a much better idea where this is going and how it will play out. I do need to work on the sub-stories at this point. I know the overall plot of the novel, but I really need to figure out what small interpersonal plots should happen in between. I also need to figure out if this is going to go the direction of a full length novel or a shorter story. This probably depends on how long my outline ends up being.
Just today I've written up 5ish chapters in outline, described 7 characters and named 19 others. I know what my prologue will consist of and I know a few of the pre-existing relationships, but I need to finish getting some initial personality characteristics in place even on the 7 described characters.
I may write as much as a chapter in Armor X before I jump back to TBoT, but I'm heading back for more intense writing soon, I think :)
Also, I need to make some new LJ icons for when I make writing posts and whatnot. ;)