State of the Author Report - I am Not Dead edition · 9:52am Sep 1st, 2015
It was a long summer.
Good things happened during it. I got to go to Everfree Northwest and connect with some incredible writers, editors, and other creatives. (I also spent the first day feeling hopelessly lost and adrift, but that's a story for another time.) I got to go to my favorite fresh market a bunch. I got delicious Dim Sum. I got to see some members of my family I rarely get to spend time with and I found some things out about myself. I got to reconnect with a very old friend and found a new thing to do with my spare time.
Bad things happened during it. Like my complete creative crash and burn, followed by a total stagnation of ideas, writing ability, and a lot of self-doubt and crippling moments of depression. I fought through the desire to throw out all of my writing and simply leave it all behind forever, and fought continued and crippling hatred of the fact that I cannot profit from my creative works as they stand right now. I went through all five stages of grieving twice for different reasons.
It was a long summer, but I am committed to coming back. To getting back on my horsewords. To write my book, and to entertain all of you more. With that being said, I'm going to engage in one of my time-honored traditions and tell you about what I am working on, and what I am definitively going to release in the future. And after that, I am going to lay out some hard realities to everyone here, including myself.
Stuff I am Going to Work On
Avatar's Call and Magnificent 7 - These are going to be finished. Come hell or high water, I am going to finish this story, and I am hoping to do so before year's end.
A sequel to Apple Family Values - One of the first projects to really turn my crank conceptually in a long time. I have four chapters finished, and once I am confident I can keep up a release schedule, I will be showing it to everyone. This is my current primary project.
A large-scale story featuring Dinky Doo and the Spirits Based on Young Eyes and Open Eyes, I am making a fully-fledged story about our young protaganist and her strange ability. This is the next project I really do want to work on, a combination of both dark and light hearted themes.
More Treecastle of Terror Shorts Stay tuned.
A Shipfic - And one I have been threatening to do for a long time.
Some short but intense and very personal clopfiction. Details to come.
Stuff I am NOT Going to work on
My previous Epic Series - I really, truly do wish to come back to these stories. But right now, I simply cannot. Please read further down and see why.
Cold Hard Reasons
I am going to graduate college in three months.
This terrifies me on a lot of levels, but mostly in the 'holy shit I need a real world job now' level. This means that a lot of time I might previously have dedicated to writing or other persuits will be dedicated to ensuring I can feed myself after december of this year. As such, the fics I am going to work on are the sort of thing I do not need to dedicate vast amounts of time and mental energy to, since I will likely have no such time or mental energy to spare. (Which reminds me, if anyone out there knows people looking for an IT guy who is great at problem solving but doesn't have a lot of experience, get in touch.) It is my devout hope that I will have more once I have settled into a career, but for now I must focus on projects which are not mentally draining.... with one sole exception.
I am writing a Book based on ideas from The Code's Apprentice.
Yes, you read that right. My first original fiction book, tentatively titled "The Student of the Code" will be my primary creative project when I am not spending time relaxing on other things. Because frankly, I want to write for a living, and the only hope I have of doing that is to start a great contemporary fantasy series and get it published. For this reason, I will not be able to work on Code of Dissonance until this book is done, simply because there are a lot of connecting elements and I don't wish to confuse myself. In addition, The Twilight Shadow cannot be written at this time because it is going to be a very intense work. Both of these stories are dear to me, and I do intend to write them, but the book - since the book offers me the chance to make MONEY - must come first.
I know this will be disappointing to some. If any of you are interested in the ending for The Twilight Shadow and do not wish to wait for me to find the time to write it, I will be happy to construct a short descriptive post as to the final outcome of the story and provide you with a private GDocs link. For the rest, I thank you for your time and patience.
If any of you have questions, comments, concerns, or wish to throw money at me, please feel free to sound off in the comments below. I am currently accepting writing commissions with flexible terms if anyone out there is interested in such things. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope to have regular content coming out for you all in the near future.
And I remain, as ever,
Humbly Yours,
Lapis-Lazuli
Hell yeah! I am so looking forward to the student of the code. The codes apprentice was by far my favourite one of your fanfics and I was pretty bummed out when nothing new had come out about it for a while. Good luck with life
Okay, glad to hear some good things happened, at least. Also, congrats on graduating in three months.
Good call on adapting one of your existing AU works. That should give a great framework to be turned completely into an original story. Best of luck getting your foot in the door.
Good luck on the book! Everytime I see a blog post like this, where a writer announces they are writing a book, I twitch a little inside
because I know I should be doing the same thing... it just doesn't feel right to start yet, I don't know why.
Good Luck on your book. I would, however, like the to know how The Twilight Shadow ends. Thank you for communicating with us. It's a great skill to have.
Again, Good Luck, the road of life is never straight,
CW
Woah, good luck on your book! One of my friends is going through the same thing himself, and having edited for him before, I can see how much it takes to write the novel how you want it.