20 April 2009

On old projects and new

So. I've got this novel I've been working on sporadically over the last 7 years. It's not very good. I feel somehow obligated to take it from the first draft where it is to a revised draft, adding in a bunch of stuff, like descriptions.

Problem is, I don't really want to. It's too overwhelming, and I want to move on to a different project. I think the dicta of "the first novel belongs in your basement" and "you'll only improve if you keep writing" are having an effect.

It's true, I've been trying to write short stories (with some success; I'm revising the crap out of the one that was rejected, though mostly I want to kill it with fire. It needs a lot of work, and I haven't got the time to wrangle it. Though that might be a focus issue.) Still waiting to hear back on the piece of flash I submitted. I think that was better written, tighter, because it had a harder word limit. It lacks plot, but it's sort of a milieu story, so.

I've been taken by a long-timeline story bug lately. Starting with an alternate history (diverging in 1888 to cause a different series of events in 1914, which then basically alters 20th century history as we know it) and going up a thousand years into the future, with space colonies and things.

I'd rather work on that. I can start with an actual plot, timeline, and characters, rather than making shit up as I went along. I've got ... 3 or 4 stories I can work on, once I figure out some more things. World War 1 was fascinating in its clusterfucktasticness.

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