I'm finally picking up some momentum on Clanless, which really helps my mood. The final chapters of TWIXT went so smoothly, as did many of the novellas of the Wandering Tale, that I forgot what it was like to really struggle to make progress. I spoiled myself, I suppose. After a few weeks of laboriously scratching a few words out each day, I think I'm finally beginning to peel back the crust of this story and get a real sense for how I want it to shape up.
I'm still trying to switch writing strategies by allowing the first draft to be rougher. I don't know how the experiment will turn out in the end, but I may as well try now. It is difficult to get out of the habit of editing every sentence to death as I write it, but I think that is more due to habit and perfectionism than it is to aversion to trying something new. Of course, if the new strategy doesn't result in higher productivity and at least the same quality, I'll ditch it and either try yet another one or go back to what I know.
This book requires more deliberate world-building than TWIXT, which was always meant to have a bit of a fuzzier, mythic feel to it. Clanless, on the other hand, is science fiction. It not only needs to be much sharper on the world details, it needs to have some reasoning behind it. The hardest part, though, is coming up with names for things that feel natural and blend into the story. Most of the other things I've written required little in naming beyond people and locations. Those are easy in comparison to naming fictional plants and animals. I'm keeping a text file with names and short descriptions, and I imagine I'll be changing some of the more ridiculous-sounding ones. However, I'm not willing to break the writing groove to come up with a good plant name.
In other news, I'm steaming away on preparations to podcast The Swordsman of Carn Nebeth. No details I can safely reveal yet, but for those of you who like audio performances: You may want to keep an eye out.
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