January in Writing

2020-02-04T06:00:00Z

As part of my accountability and encouragement of writing, here are all the interesting writing and world-building posts I've done in the month of January.

My weekly posts continued as normal. January covered 236 through 240 of consecutive weeks since I started posting weekly chapters.

Allegro 3-6: Most of January was introducing characters, establishing plot hooks for later, and showing a bit of montage. It's a bit more time travel for me than usual since the first six chapters covers twelve years.

On the world-building side, I didn't have quite as many posts as I would have liked.

Sequels, Prequels, and Intermissions was just a little discussion about how I seem to be arranging my writing, mostly in spreading out from my tent pole stories and building up the world more.
Jogūchya - Snap the Tail was the rules for a card game inspired by Uno and and Go Fish. Eventually, this will lead into 64 Cards for 64 Games.
Tarsan: I also took a hand at writing some wiki-like pages for various components of my world. This is for Tarsan, one of the important countries for my current world development.

On the short story side, I had three stories:

Last Chance at Immortality is a story about a man who spent his entire life creating devices of destruction and on the eve of his own fading life. I'd say it introduces him as a villain, but he was already one to start with.
A Gut Feeling continues Gertrude's story after she loses their family rock quarry and she stumbled into the resistance. Her entire story is actually related to Kanéko but I haven't linked them together. Gertrude's stories include Brick Delivery, Brick Jam, and Losing It Brick by Brick.
Blue Hat Club is a short story about a man who helps organize a local gay support group in Tarsan and the sweet day when an old man comes shuffling in.

So, a few short stories, some world-building, and a novel moving forward. Overall, a good month. I was hoping to get some other posts written but it is the beginning of the year and I had more paperwork than usual.

In Feburary, my goals are:

Continue Allegro. At the moment, I don't have a buffer so I need to try getting ahead on that piece.
Three short stories.
Three world-building pieces.
My writing monies for 2019 which is going to be a downer for me to write.
An updated post on writing processes.

As usual, let me know if you like any stories or want to see new topics or themes. I'm deeply thankful for my subscribers through Patreon and other places. Your help has been wonderful in encouraging me.

Thank you.

Two Months in Writing

2020-01-04T06:00:00Z

Here I decided I was going to do a monthly status of everything I've written in the month and then promptly forgot to do one in December. I apologize for that, I want to be more accountable for my patrons and other subscribers.

In some ways, this was good because I ended up getting rather sick from the end of October and into January. Plus the end of the year is always bad because of my day job, so productivity dropped sharply in December.

I ended up finishing one serialized novel and starting the next:

Raging Alone 19-23: I finished rewriting Raging Alone and posted it out.
Allegro 1-2: I put up a poll for my subscribers and got enough feedback to pick my next novel. Allegro is a in-world fan-fiction of Lindsey Sterling's Roundtable Rival.

I started doing more world-building posts and wrote a bit about world development and specific entries.

Magic and Trauma is about my world mechanic of why Rutejìmo's and Desòchu's coming of age was so brutal. Also why Maris is so powerful.
Tent Pole Development describes my philosophy on world-building and how my stories and novels are fleshing out the world.
Hidanork Land Magic is part of my working out the next country in my world, the one set for Looking For the Wrong Thing.
Iterative Development is another meta-development piece on world-building, mostly about how it is better to bounce around so different concepts can mesh together instead of focusing on “just religion” or “just borders”.
Creating Hissan is apropos of December's Lexember as I start to work out another constructed language for my world, Hissan. Speaking of which, I did Hissan for Lexember this year and came up with thirty-one new words.

I managed to write a few short stories in the two months, mostly in November.

Losing it Brick by Brick: This is a short story about an elderly couple losing their rock quarry due to a greedy baron. It is a story of loss, betrayal, and a mecha. This is the same couple from Brickpunk.
Early Morning Tea is more of a slice-of-life piece about a rural man sitting on his porch enjoying a cup of tea while waiting for his wife to come from from spending the night with a friend. It was a quieter piece in response to a depressing article I read years ago about the same situation, except that one was “we are poly because he won't stop cheating”.
I Will Hurt You Only Once: I wrote this because of Raging Alone is about a brutal coming of age but I realized that I've only shown the abusive methods instead of the more caring. As much as Shimusògo are my “tent poles”, they have some blind spots that make them abusive. The entire sand series (starting with Sand and Blood) hints at their struggles as does Raging Alone. Overall, it's an honest, loving explanation of some of the world mechanics behind the other two novels.
Only Answer Questions is a story about a dalpre (dog person) assassin meeting up with a new customer.
Hopelessly Stuck in a Rainy Field is about a young man who decides to drive a new automobile on a long-distance trip, only to get stuck in a field on the first day.
Difficulties of Traditions: A little piece about a ship's cook and the regenerating tentacle monster in the hold.

Going forward, I put writing these posts on a reoccurring reminder so hopefully I'll be more regular with them. January is going to be somewhat of a recovery month so there won't be as many short stories as I hoped, but my goal is to write at least four by the end of the month (I like SMART goals). I also want to get two world-building essays out. That is also along with keeping up with Allegro and other obligations.

Oh, and I got fan mail! That was awesome.

As usual, let me know if you like any stories or want to see new topics or themes. I'm deeply thankful for my subscribes through Patreon and others, your help has been wonderful in encouraging me. Thank you.

One Dollar Patreon

January in Writing

Two Months in Writing