Monday, November 7, 2016

Has it been over a year?

Yes, yes it has.


Oops.


Well, there have been a couple of updates since then, but really the big one is that I FINISHED MY BOOK. Hurray! *pops champagne bottle*

It's about magicians and archaeology and a semi-sentient chateau with questionable motives. It's got romance and dead bodies (not related), abandoned theatres and underwater ballrooms. Three young people who can't seem to shake off the weight of the past.

And secrets. Lots and lots of secrets. Think Howl's Moving Castle with We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

It's weird to finally label this as done when I've been working on it for so long, and though the slog of finding an agent is underway - a wrestle of unending anxiety and time - part of me still wants to shake it up and re-examine every word yet again. Does this fit here? How many angles can I take in this scene? How much is being said through what the characters don't say?

Blah, blah, repeat. But for now, at least, I'm moving away from it. To a new book! To a new (actually really old, have been working at this forever) book.

I don't know what it's called yet, but it's going to be awesome. If The Assistant is ultimately a domestic drama, then this is the opposite. Large scale, heavy world-changing stakes. Questions of allegiance to kings, guardsmen, old friends. Wanted princes and forgotten kingdoms. Children of the gods. And of course, my favourite reluctant protagonist.

It was the first NaNoWriMo novel I ever wrote, and it's this year's do over. Of course what I'm writing now is in a... peculiar shape, shall we say, but that's to be expected. Bones, then muscle, then all the delights that skin has to offer. Muscle before skin. Brush strokes before detail. (insert favourite writing cliche here).

Onwards and upwards!