This morning, I finished the first draft of The Master of Puppets. It’s a first draft, and as always first draft is first drafty, so it needs some work, but it was a pain in the ass to write, and I really, really need some time away from the universe. To be clear, it’s a good book, and I really think people are going to enjoy it, but the difficulties I had with it stem from the fact that I was writing from an outline, and that is always harder for me than my normal writing process which is a lot more organic. Since I know I’m going to have similar issues with the next two books in the series, I am going to take some time and work on projects that will be a lot more enjoyable for me.
The first of those is Transistor, which I have mentioned before. I’ll probably start work on it Monday or Tuesday. Just as soon as I get Scatter off on submission.
But at the same time, I’ve gone a little crazy and decided to do something I didn’t think I would ever really consider doing. I’m going to write a Fantasy novel. I mentioned this in one of my progress reports, but guys, I can not tell you how deeply I have fallen in love with this idea.
Now, those of you who know me well know I will watch the occasional fantasy movie, but getting me to read fantasy is a non-starter. I read Tolkien at a young age and it soured me on fantasy as a genre, so the idea of me being excited about a fantasy project is just bizarre, but I think the thing about this is, it isn’t based even remotely on Medieval Europe.
The current working title is “The Long Way Round”. Like I mentioned in a progress report a few days ago, the book is a fantasy take on late late 18th, early 19th century North America, and I am just so taken with the main character. She’s such a departure from the sort of characters I usually gravitate towards. She doesn’t even have a name yet, but I am just so excited about the idea of writing her that I really, really can’t wait to get to this story.
Transistor first though. Transistor is important to me for a lot of reasons, but really guys. The Long Way Round feels like something special, and I can’t wait to get to it.