Tell Me a Story?

[queenoftheskies]

Anybody want to share their writing projects? What are you working on these days? What are your hopes and aspirations for it?

What do you hope for the future?

Anybody want to tell me a story?

Comments

Well...

[seawasp]

My primary focus right now is the sequel to Boundary, tentatively titled Threshold. I will also be producing some new Jason Wood stories, as Eric has expressed an interest in putting them into Baen's Universe (the new SF magazine).

Once I get Threshold done, I will ask Jim to give me a contract for my next solo novel, which I title Demons of the Past. This takes place in the deep past of my first book Digital Knight, and is in some ways the story I've MOST wanted to tell, of all the ones I know I want to write (the other is the one I call "The Grand Finale", but I *can't* write that one until I've published between 4 and 6 other books that precede it.)

Now, if I didn't have a Real Job (TM) and could write all the time, there's also some fanfic/gamefic stuff I'd like to do, too...

[intheweeds.livejournal.com]

I've got a story for you if you want to read it! I just finished and it's my best ever. I'm so proud of it. It could use some "professional" eyes, though! It's called MOUNTAIN DONE CALLED ME HOME about a country girl who hates where she grew up and finds herself having to go back there just as a hurricane is about to hit.

My description may not sound good--I've never been good at summing and querying anything I write, but I promise it's good. Great, actually. Well, for me, that is. Interested?

[roseyniswitrin.livejournal.com]

I haven't posted any responses for awhile, because I usually am just buzzing through. But I've got a bit of time today while my hair dye sets (LOL!), so I'll answer this one.

The fiction project I'm currently working on is tentatively titled "Merlyn's Raven" and is set in the Arthurian universe. In ancient lore, Merlyn was thought to have a sister/wife, who is mentioned in several pieces of early writing that revolve around him. This story is told from her point of view and follows the path of Merlyn's life as those writings do. Of course, there is a lot of made-up stuff thrown in as well--how they met, how they became close, and how Merlyn became the famous "magician" that he was thought to be. It's been a lot of fun to write so far, although it's becoming far more a "romance" than I thought it would be. Gwendydd, the main character, is evolving into someone I didn't originally imagine, which is exciting and a bit weird! LOL!

I haven't had much time to work on it in the last week, though. I've been trying to concentrate my free time on the promotion work I need to start doing for my nonfiction book, which is coming out in May. There's a lot of stuff to think about and work on, so the fiction has had to take a back seat. I might have an hour or so to add a few pages today, though. We'll see.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

Weeell...

My current one is Chronicles of Magic: Daughter of the Mystics which is about this girl, Azura, who lives in a hidden village and she goes through all these trials...my plan is:

-Finish first draft
-Start going through and editing
-Start rewriting
-Start coming up with ideas for book 2
-Possibly start writing book 2, or just wait and continue rewriting and then work on book 2
-Edit and start rewriting book 2
-Repeat process, only with book 3.

No idea if it'll actually happen, buuut...:|

[mark-west.livejournal.com]

I am currently working on Project Bun (Bloody Unpleasant Novella), which I am writing on spec, though the publisher of my novel is interested enough in the basic run-through I've given him. So far, I've had to research the Czech Republic (which was interesting) and snuff films (which was quite scary, actually).

My hope and aspirations for the project are that it maintains momentum so that I actually write and finish the thing and that it comes somewhere near to the story that I can see in my head. Beyond that, I hope that either Pendragon Press or some other clever publisher picks it up and that it sells enough to make it profitable for the publisher (and, of course, allows me to treat the family to something).

For the future? Find a job, write more, write often, get more widely published.

What about you, what are your hopes and aspirations for your projects and future plans?

[mark-west.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, the title'll be nicer than the story itself! But, you see, I'm a nice person really so I tend to call things silly names when they're actually rather violent and unpleasant, it makes me feel better.

[mark-west.livejournal.com]

...I tend to skirt around ickiness in my writing.... Now, that's something that I don't do - I tend to go for it, in fact. I hope the BUN plan works though, you'll have to let me know!

[peartreealley.livejournal.com]

I just started my first novel that I hope I'll be able to market as paranormal romance (if I can't then it'll be urban fantasy). It's the first time I'm trying to break out of writing fantasy/fantasy, though I think the biggest difference for me in plotting is just getting more of the romance in than I usually do in my other stories (IE, they hero can't be the bad guy or a louse, and she can't leave him at the end :D).

Well--of course, it's my hope it'll help me start in the paranormal romance genre, so I have one more genre to write books for each year, someday when I'm actually selling these things :D

Hopes for the future? I hope that my day job calms down, because even if I get to go writing full time, pragmatically, it's going to be 3-5 years still even if I sold a novel this year. And I hope I sell novels this year. Because, well, that's what I've been aiming for and it's gotta happen some year or another :D

My offering!

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

From a writing game about a year ago (where we have 10 or 20 minutes to come up with a story from inspiration on little scraps of paper):

You can find anything on the Internet, or so Gerald's mother used to tell him. But that was before the infamous Rupert Dripping incident, when a very bemused and somewhat cold young peer was delivered to their house by The Royal Mail. apparently his father had put him up for sale on ebay, a title being worth very little nowadays if one hasn't the cash to maintain the stately pile. And so, one day, when Gerald's mother was expecting the delivery of a rather nice tweed jacket, it did indeed arrive through the post, but filled with 12 stone of unexpected, chinless Oxford graduate that she'd thought was the model. Gerald went around looking smug for the next couple of weeks; he's always told her she should read the item description before bidding.

Re: My offering!

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

PS, I'm keeping hopes for the future on hold until tomorrow!

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Working on the rewrite of my first paranormal, entitled Belladonna Dreams, which I hope will land me an agent. Also working on the sequel to my first book, entitled Dark Moon Seasons, which has already been contracted to my publisher.

Hopes for the future? Actually, I love my day job, so I'm hoping to go far with that, and get a nice retirement package, so I can continue to write. :D

[db-writer.livejournal.com]

I'm marketing my first sci-fi novel (went out for the second time last night) entitled "St Cochrane's World", and, among my other projects:

Last night I re-wrote a story I first penned a dozen years ago. "The Nightwalk" is about a girl who thinks she's a werewolf but is in fact a were-puppy. I lost the original version of the story so I just re-wrote it from memory and submitted it to an e-zine looking for stories, Raven Electrick. They pay $25 for "Flash Fiction" 500 words and under. "The Nightwalk" was originally about 900 words but I trimmed it to 650 and submitted it last night. All done in about 2 hours writing time.

"Dark Day", aka "Joyride" - This short is stuck on hold right now. I'm halfway through writing it (about 3,500 words) and I've outlined the rest of the story. I hope to get this done and out to paying markets soon. After my "Nightwalk" experience last night I'm pumped up to put out some short story product. This one is based almost totally on a particularly vivid dream I had.

"Starbound" - AKA "HMS Valiant" - There is a surprising amount of work done here. Chapter 1 is well underway, as is a major scene in Chapter 3 and a full outline/synopsis plus character sketches. There are still some story details to be ironed out but I was surprised to find that I have about 8,500 words in on this already! It looks like this will be my next novel project and will probably push "St. Cochrane's War" to the side for now.

"Three Months" is a contemporary romance novel (not sci-fi) about a divorced Seattle engineer who takes a "romance tour" to Russia to try and find love. He does so in the form of Natalya Demyinova, an atypical Russian woman. This story is fully developed and fully plotted, scene by scene. The synopsis runs nine pages of single spaced paragraphs. I'm toying with turning this into a screenplay, doing some research on the format, etc. This project is definitely in the queue to be picked up soon. Another note: I wrote the entire story treatment in one 5 hour session a couple of winters back. There's noting like that kind of streak!

"The Armageddon Tango" is a non-fiction project about evangelical eschatology and its detrimental effects on people's lives, and the generally negative outlook on life it produces. This one comes from too much first hand experience. Don't expect it to be a Bible-basher though. I'd much rather address the intellectual issues involved. Also has relevance today as that Iranian nutjob running the country also has an "end times" belief motivating him. Dangerous stuff.

Lastly, I'm also editing my brother's non-fiction book Dark Agenda, which has some great information about Nazi's, NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (did you know JPL was founded by, among others, L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley?) and other mysteries. It's great stuff.

As for telling stories, I only share those in private!

Now if only I didn't have to work for a living! LOL!

db