Getting close to the end of my current novel
I've been writing my latest novel, Breathe, for too many years. I got the idea for it back in 2015, while I was writing my short novel, Shirlocke, but it really took me a year or more to get started. The story seemed fairly straightforward, but it turned out to require a lot more research than I expected... so, combined with my usual distracted and procrastinating nature, here we are 4 years later and I'm finally approaching the end. It will be my biggest novel yet. It's set here in Australia, and tells an uplifting story of a lesbian couple who survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
Here is the cover I created:
I know it's odd to be talking about this before I've actually finished, but I'm prompted by the exciting feeling that it is finally, after all this time, approaching completion. One of the first things I knew, when I originally came up with the story idea, was how I wanted it to end, but it bothered me that my ending might be too unsatisfying. Well, yesterday I realised how to tie the whole thing up in a satisfying way, while leaving it open and still being able to use my original ending. Nice!
I really hope after all this time this book is not a huge pile of steaming crap. It worries me when I think of all those books and movies where people have spent an enormous amount of time, devoting tremendous effort, resources, and money to creating something they think is great, but which can be genuinely awful. Somehow creators are often blind to the faults of their creations. I honestly don't know whether my works are good or terrible. (Given the lack of feedback, I fear it may be the latter.) However, given that the task I've set myself is to become a better writer by writing at least 12 novels, this one will put me just over the halfway mark. It is another big step on the journey.
That journey needs to speed up, because I fear that I'm likely to inherit my Mum's susceptibility to Alzheimer's. She has it and both her sisters died of it. I'm next in line. If I'm to complete my task I'd better get a hurry on... especially since I also want to start narrating my stories and illustrate some, and create an artificial intelligence similar to that in my short story Grave Words.
Too much to do; too little time.
I'd better get back to writing. (Crossposted from https://miriam-e.dreamwidth.org/335016.html at my Dreamwidth account. Number of comments there so far:
)
Here is the cover I created:
I know it's odd to be talking about this before I've actually finished, but I'm prompted by the exciting feeling that it is finally, after all this time, approaching completion. One of the first things I knew, when I originally came up with the story idea, was how I wanted it to end, but it bothered me that my ending might be too unsatisfying. Well, yesterday I realised how to tie the whole thing up in a satisfying way, while leaving it open and still being able to use my original ending. Nice!
I really hope after all this time this book is not a huge pile of steaming crap. It worries me when I think of all those books and movies where people have spent an enormous amount of time, devoting tremendous effort, resources, and money to creating something they think is great, but which can be genuinely awful. Somehow creators are often blind to the faults of their creations. I honestly don't know whether my works are good or terrible. (Given the lack of feedback, I fear it may be the latter.) However, given that the task I've set myself is to become a better writer by writing at least 12 novels, this one will put me just over the halfway mark. It is another big step on the journey.
That journey needs to speed up, because I fear that I'm likely to inherit my Mum's susceptibility to Alzheimer's. She has it and both her sisters died of it. I'm next in line. If I'm to complete my task I'd better get a hurry on... especially since I also want to start narrating my stories and illustrate some, and create an artificial intelligence similar to that in my short story Grave Words.
Too much to do; too little time.
I'd better get back to writing. (Crossposted from https://miriam-e.dreamwidth.org/335016.html at my Dreamwidth account. Number of comments there so far:
)