April Writing and May Plans

[osprey_archer]

In April, I wrote a piece of flash fiction called “Skysail Jack,” about a young vagabond who likes to hitch rides on zeppelins, with occasionally disastrous results. This was not accepted to Flash Fiction Online but may nonetheless spark a flash fiction series with classic adventure story titles like “Skysail Jack and the Flying Dutchmen.”

I’m also continuing very slow work on my fantasy novelette The Paper Bird. I believe I will complete a draft this month! It’s going to be about 15,000 words, which is an awkward length, but I’m just so pleased that I’m going to have a draft, since I started this story 16 years ago at a time when I was starting (and occasionally finishing) many secondary world fantasy stories. They were all terrible, and I couldn’t understand why. I was so faithfully going through those websites of worldbuilding questions! Reading books about crafting imaginary languages! Carefully creating maps and sprawling family trees!

But I believe that at long last, I may be writing a secondary world fantasy story that is actually good. This is partly because I have grown as a person and a writer, and partly because I’ve finally grasped that I need to leave out like 95% of that beautiful worldbuilding.

I am therefore cautiously considering the possibility that I might be able to write about some of the other secondary world characters who have obstinately refused to die despite ~15 years of neglect. In fact, I tried to describe some of these story ideas in this post, but ran up against the fact that they tend to have characters and a setting but not what you might actually call a “story,” which makes it difficult to describe them in a way that might interest other people.

But good news! The Paper Bird also languished for years with characters and a setting but no story, so I just need to replicate the process whereby I gave it a plot. Unfortunately I don’t know quite how I did it, but no worries! I’m sure I can work it out.

Also, I don’t think that most of these potential stories are very marketable in self-pub, with the possible exception of Innis and Jess (prisoner of war and guy who really didn’t want a pet prisoner of war; obviously they fall in love, obviously their cultures have wildly different views on sex/love/romance/etc), but that is a problem for future me. At the moment it’s just nice to be writing again.

Comments

[asakiyume]

From where I'm sitting on Mastodon, it seems like a fair amount of second-world fantasies sell pretty well, or at least well enough to please their authors, in self-pub, so maybe it's just a matter of your having moved mainly in queer romance circles? ... But I don't know: this is simply my impression as an observer.

ANYway, as you say, that's a problem for future you. I'm so glad you're practically done with The Paper Bird! And I agree: Skysail Jack cries out for multiple adventures.

[osprey_archer]

Maybe there is a market after all! I will have to investigate. Possibly not a lot of overlap with my current self-pub market.

I'm hoping to find a tradpub venue for The Paper Bird, although I recognize that it's an awkward length that will make this challenging. "Skysail Jack" should be a shoo-in somewhere, though.

[asakiyume]

Oh yes: I think you will find venues for both, actually.

[hyperion_swan]

📄 🦢✨!!!