Some of my brilliant writer-friends keep talking or blogging about their writing. Not just wordcount updates, but how the process hits them, where they are in their personal arcs, what they’ve figured out and what’s left to learn about their stories.

I love those posts/conversations. I love hearing about writing progress and ideas and excitement and flailing. I am just as interested in commiserating about the stuck moments as I am in exulting about the lightbulb epiphanies.

Then I realized that I could write those kinds of posts, too! And perhaps someone would be interested, in the same way I am interested in others’ posts!

Exciting.

So I’m going to ramble today. And perhaps more than just today. Perhaps you will see regular posts that are not comprised solely of fiction snippets and awesomesauce collections from around the ‘net. Wouldn’t that be somethin’?

What I’m Working On

I’m fidgeting with three WIPs at the moment and trying to pick one to focus on. The focusing thing may or may not happen, because I’ve been trying to choose among them for weeks now and haven’t been able to yet.

First off, we have Enmity, the prequel to the Jubagh series. It’s the shortest WIP of the three in wordcount, and its outline is done and solid but for one lingering, missing plot twist at the climax. Right now, the main plotline is a little too straight-and-dry for my tastes. I need to tangle it a bit.

Secondly, we have Gudgeon, last year’s NaNoWriMo novel. (That’s one of the main characters right there, Berin of Ghura. He’s a rarra.) It has a good 50,000+ words on it, but the vast majority of those need to be rewritten. The first draft created in November served only to show me glimpses of its potential; I have a solid and detailed outline for it now, the first really thorough outline I’ve ever done, and I want to rewrite it entirely. It’s a little more severe and darker than most of my plots, but I think it’s a story worth telling.

Lastly, we have Ghosts, 2009’s NaNo novel. It was the first story I actually completed within the month’s deadline and 50k wordcount, and it didn’t suck! I recently reread it, realized how simplistic and undeveloped the plot was, and remembered how much I loved the characters and the concept. I’m about 80% done with the new outline, which is much more intense, believable, complicated, and tighter than the original. I even wrote a short story to help flesh out some of the characters’ backstory, which happens well before the novel begins; you can also take a peek at the first chapter in its revised (but not finalized) glory.

All three novels are set in the Gurhai universe, a place of space galleons, tiny orbiting suns, disc-shaped worlds, and special gravitic ore that produces both gravity and magical energy. Gudgeon and Ghosts – both of which are working titles, so no snickering, you – are set on the same planet in Gurhai: Ryarna, industry-dessicated desert world of the magic-talented, carnivorous, rabbit-eared rarra and their ghost-powered mechanical beasts, animetals. Enmity takes place on a handful of different worlds, including the homeworld of the main characters of Ghosts (who are not rarra, but are corata from Oakh).

I’m really excited about all three novels, especially Enmity: once I finish that, it catapults me back into the rough drafts of the 4.5 books I’ve written in the Jubagh series, and I can rewrite and revise and update and play with all of my favorite people again. However, since Ghosts and Gudgeon are much farther along than Enmity in many ways, I may choose one of those to push through the finishing-and-polishing process first, just to gobble up experience that I can learn from and use on Enmity afterwards. I have written many a story, and some a novel, but never gotten one truly done to the point where I was comfortable asking for beta readers.

And that’s my goal. Taking a novel to a place where I have done all I possibly can by myself, then passing it along to people who can help me improve it even more.

So, fellow writers – what are you working on right now? I want to know!