I’ve started on the first draft of a new project.  As much as I wanted Skyland to be a serial (and perhaps someday, it will), I didn’t want this one to be.  But, you can’t tell a book what it should be.  And this one, despite my planning efforts, is a serial.

I’m writing a book about a world where some people (the rich) hibernate in suspended animation, while others (the poor) take drugs to never sleep.  A bunch of stuff happens.  It’s a tale, or more accurately, multiple tales, of addiction, love, and wealth divide.   There’ll be overdosing, withdrawal, sacrifice, social pressure, and challenging all that the characters know. 

Hopefully, it’ll be an intriguing world.  I’m still trying to figure out how to make the overall arc more interesting.  At the moment, it feels a bit predictable.

I’m looking at the first draft of this one as sort of a frame work.  I know the rough ideas of each story.  But rather than organize it all up front, I’m just going to write it and see what happens.

I started on it today.  The first book is Slumber.

I wrote 1850 words in a little over an hour.  Then, I had Adam read it.  After his notes, I removed almost 600 words, and promptly wrote about a new 800 to take their place.

It’s a good start.  I just hope that this first story is as long as I want it to be.  But, it’s best not to force it.  I’m going to let the story tell me what it wants to be, and how big.

Also, most of these stories are tragic.  I’m going to have to come up with some, little victories, along the way if I don’t want people to just be sad and stop reading.  Not sure how to do that yet.

Anyway, that was just a little update on what I’m currently working on.  That, and Witness revisions.  I hope that I get Otherworlders back from my ‘editor’ soon.  I’m eager to get that out.  Might release more flash fictions collections too, just as soon as I can do some editing on them.