Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Updates and talk about stories.

Formatting is go. It wasn’t exactly in place last week, which was concerning me. Now the text will probably be in place well before the cover art. I am relieved because I wanted to have the old gang back together for this third installment, to keep everything clean and consistent. Fingers crossed the cover can be put together quickly, and I can release the book by the end of February 2025. I would be tickled to release it on Valentine’s day if possible, but we’ll see.

I never stop having new ideas for stories. In some ways it would be nice to just focus on the ideas I have, and work out a potential schedule for them all before I die, or as many of them as could be reasonably managed, but no, I keep having more.

This weekend I came up with a pure pulp pseudo D&D story and world. It just flowed in the way the good ideas do, each fancy building on what came before and helping the next into existence. I’ve even got maps to use. (I’ve been told that the absence of maps in my first two books has been an issue for some. I have crappy versions for my own use. I genuinely don’t think they’re necessary to the story, or I’d have included them. Maybe in the 10 year deluxe editions, hoho!)

The idea came replete with some but not all deep history, and no full cosmology: sometimes you don’t need that. The next book I’m writing is built from the dawn of time up, not that the reader will ever be told all the details, but I will know. Like the maps, I don’t think it’s necessary to share. Apart from here. You may disagree.

I don’t think I’m distracting myself with that idea, it was just a scene that popped into my head, and I built elements of world, story, magic system, and history from it, including one very archly writerly story structure that I thought could only work in a pulp style, because otherwise it was too pretentious. Of course as the ideas grew, I could see how the book could become more weighty and freighted with theme and meaning, but I think in a way not imposed by the author, just decided upon by the reader, if they wish. I like that idea. So far I’ve written stories that have had in-built themes and significances that I have worked on and around, if only for me, so the idea of writing a straight up adventure story that might have meanings for others I am actively trying to avoid imposing seems a cool idea. Except as I actually write it I doubt I’ll be able to stop myself from trying to impose some sort of thematic framework. Sigh.

See what I mean about pretension. Man it is hard to avoid, when talking about writing stories. Even the straight-forward ones whose details you don’t want to share yet because they’re too damn cool.

It is September. I have a few months to work on new ideas, nail down constructs. I wish I could write two or three novels at once: that would be fabulous. Dragon speech to text and crazy editing on my horizon? I think I wouldn’t write a book, just spitball endless notes and ummm noises.

My adventures in Scots continue. My other learning projects are taking a back seat, I can’t lie. I’m going slowly, but already I’m beginning to notice characteristic patterns of speech, ones I’ve used, but with modern vocabulary clothing the old form. Seeing those patterns in the older vocabulary does give them better definition in my mind. I think I’m going to have to read a lot of Scots in as many formats as possible to really begin to internalize it enough to write it effectively, and even then it will be awkward at first, I have no doubt. But love letters are often awkward until the writer gains in confidence.

Until next week my friends. This has been a random one.