Starting . . . and starting . . . and . . .
I just sat down and counted. Since the start of the year I have started thirteen stories. And finished two.
One was nineteen thousand words, the other thirteen thousand. Not that I have anything against shorter works, but I used to think it was a novelist. I thought I wrote series?
What the heck?
A little reflection, and I realized what the problem might be.
I totally lack a big, mean, nasty, enemy empire.
Whether your Empires are attacking and defending across light years in huge FTL battleships. Flying armadas through wormholes, or driving tanks through dimensional portals, big SF series need to have Evil Empires.
I have had them in the past. I have defeated them.
My last series was mostly internal rebellion, with the external push providing the opportunity for the Good Guys in there to try to change the evil aspects without bring down the whole empire. It mostly worked, and now I’m fiddling with little personal stories cleaning up the mess, slapping the noses of the entrenched tottering old ways.
So, do I drop out of the Multiverse, last problem solved?
Or will my backbrain come up with something even worse and bigger, that will have the Former Bad Guys joining up with the, err, Before That Bad Guys, and the Always Good Guys?
And I gotta tell you, it’s going to be hard. Maybe even harder than turning away and starting a whole new unconnected book, whether or not it turns into a series.
It’s not like I don’t have plenty of stand alone books.
Maybe it’s time to do a few more, and see if it grows into something.
Or, heretical thought . . . FINISH WHAT I’VE STARTED!!!!!
Ahem. Sorry. Anyone else just spinning their wheels and feeling like they’re getting nowhere?
Mad Genius Club 
7 responses to “Ups and Downs of Writing”
I wonder whether I’m being stymied in a revision by difficulties inside or outside the story.
*Waves* Definitely. I have at least 6 ideas I really like, but day job (plus allergies) means I’m so utterly exhausted it’s all I can do to make stuttering progress on finishing the last sticky part in the draft of the book I’ve been working on… for years now. So close. And yet so far.
I refuse to give up, but it’s… hard, wondering if I’m going to finish, if I’m actually going to get my brain to work on another idea again. So. Tired.
LJ sucks for leaving comments.
So, hey, what’s Wavelength finding out there on non-Earths?
What about Ebsa and Paer’s elf friends and their branch of Earths?
And I think there was at least one other non-homo sapiens branch mentioned . . .
But I’d love Stone 2.
Yeah, Sarah’s kicking my a** and telling me to get onto Substack.
Ugh. Old Dog hates learning new tricks!
And Stone 2 is partially done. Must drag it out and look at it anew.
Hi,
I agree. What is going on in the other branches of the multiverse tree? The exploration stories/sub-series are some of my favorites, which is why I was excited when the teaser cover for Wolf Road with Crazy Red-head #2 was posted.
Stone 2 also sounds like fun.
I saw a post story thing where Zen bumped into another version of The God Of War. What happened to that
One of the many unfinished.