Actually, I'm just a Busy Girl, but these days it equates to the same thing. *goggle eyes* So, I'm terribly sorry for the lack of posts last week, and I can't promise to do much better this week, but I shall try :)
And to that end, this post.
Over on Critique Circle we've been having a bit of a discussion about works in progress - specifically, how many we have. Two days ago, as per advice in Holly Lisle's Think Sideways course (which basically equates to: 'life is too short to write every idea you have, so don't waste time writing anything less than the great ones'), I narrowed down my horrendously long list of potential/in progress projects to only ones that I would truly be sad if I didn't write.
I got it down from over fifty plus universes to 15 stand alone projects plus 7 universes.
Several other of my friends followed suit, and Ardyth suggested that we record our lists as goals: projects we will see published, by hook or by crook, projects we love and will write.
And I thought, what better place to record my goals than here? :)
These, then, are the current final contenders in the 'I Simply Must Write These Stories' stakes.
Stand Alones:
Black Death: A responsible eldest daughter must save her family by killing the monster within. Dark fantasy.
Earth Shadow Rising: an as-yet illusive storyline, but one which nonetheless fills me with shivers. Involves a girl in a misty river, the rising of the Earth's shadow at twilight, and all sort of other fun, currently-completely-unconnected images. Probably a philosophicalish fantasy.
Fairytale Ending: If Cinderella were a detective...
Fever and Earth: A young earth-horse spirit, born of contaminated ground, has always been an outcast - until the community needs him.
Jessica's Room: Every girl has a secret. But not every secret can kill you... Involves relationships gone wrong and a demon or two...
Neighbourhood Watch: persists in being though of a Night Watch. MC is jealous of his brother's ability to rule the streets - until he realises what's really out there. More demons, nightmares, etc.
Prodigal: Prodigal son story, only with a daughter, a load of uncontrollable magic talent gone wrong, and a very nasty future-telling crystal...
'Thriller': forbidden cities, pyschological magic...
The Diary: Orphaned girl seeks truth about mother - and finds out in the process that she's half monster...
The Dragon Stone: a really weird, random, ecological fantasy novel revolving around reptiles and amphibians
The Jehosephat Stones: another shiny-yet-un-forth-coming idea. Something about magic stones that you use by putting in your mouth...
The Other Side: war hero finds restoration in the camp of the enemy. Exploration of attitudes towards violence. (fantasy)
The Project: As per sidebar. Cross-genre fantasy/sci fi/murder mystery.
Three Names, Three Hearts: Un-pin-downable. Questy fantasy.
Untitled 1: questy fantasy, involving betrayals, working for people who aren't who you think they are, etc.
Untitled 2: Desperate-to-stay-cool teenager is unwillingly dragged into girlfrfiend's efforts to save a historical tree - only to discover that the tree is quite literally the root of all evil.
Universes:
Battersplotch: Without Magic, Mechanical Heart
YA, magic system based on cooking. Involves cyborgy-zombie thingos.
Fairyverse: The Danger Roads, The Master Key
Series of 4-5 junior/YA novels; the fairies at the bottom of the garden take Edge places she's never known...
Magic Eyes Universe: How Not To Take Over The World, To Be An Evil Overlord..., Who Wants To Be A Minion, 'submerged sun'
Comic fantasy. Evil overlords vie for rulership in a world where the Good Guys Against Evil (GGAE) require membership fees, and have banned practical lessons in Raiding...
Portalverse: huge sprawly alternate Earth history. Involves sub-verses of Lighting (The Temple, Magician's Thunder, Lightning short), Meterologists (Lightning short, Taming the Unicorns), other worlds (Black Gates, Messiah, Liana's Choice, Logan, Toman Story) and alternate earth (all the mentioned lightning and meterologist ones, plus Hunter Hunted). This 'verse is HUGE.
Secret Breakers: Secret Breaker, Secret Dreams, 'Amelia', 'twins apart', Written Truth
Alternate Earth. Magic is psychic-related, involving ability to detect lies/deception. Multiple stand-alone novels.
Shards: Jesscapades, Night in the Shards, Shard in the Mists
Assassin school trilogy. Jesscapades is the one where the student assassin has to kill her best friend as her graduation exam...
Trilogy: may be subsumed into the Portalverse. Originally a trilogy, but now probably only one or two books. Alternate Earth; looks at what it's like to be the chosen one's duplicate.
Happily, although it is probably not at all obvious from the details given here, not only are these stories ones which I love, they are also to some degree vocally and thematically consonant. These have the potential to be a real basis for establishing a career, a voice, and a style.
Busy Girl I may be - but today, I'm also Happy Girl :)
7 comments:
Yeah.... I so know that feeling... I need to pick something and just beat it into submission shape.
Ha! I love Untitled 2.
I'm one of those writers who don't have a ton of projects going at once (thank goodness). I'll work like a buggar on something, get it through critique and once it's finished that process, I usually know if it's worth pursuing or not. I have a lot of 'practice novels' but all of them had to be written, and I don't regret the time it took, because I learned from each project.
But, I can see how you have to be choosy if you have a ton of story ideas all clamboring to be written.
Yeah, if I wanted to write every idea that came to mind, I'd need to live to at least... probably 5000? *goggle eyes*
Sparky - Untitled 2 is the wip I'm using/developing as the coursework for Think Sideways. Lotsa fun :)
God, do I feel like a slacker now. I have problems juggling two or three projects at once!
Good list! (Long list!) They all sounds shiny and fun!
As for my own, they are all locked away in the bottom box in my brain cause I don't have thought space to deal with them at the moment. So subdued, they seem small and quiet. My only fear is that they may breed in the dark... : )
Ashtah - I suspect they shall. I've had two more jump on me in the last day. I told them that unless they were willing to be short stories, they could get lost O:)
Carrie, welcome! Nice to have some new faces here :) Don't feel bad about working on only a few novels at a time! While I've listed all these as novels I'm determined to FINISH, I'm certainly not working solidly on all of them at once :)
And at least if you only have one or two projects going, you're less likely to get distracted, and more likely to actually finish something...... O:)
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