For those who actually read my books, here is a report on the work in progress (WIP), the fourth book in the Mangas County Mysteries series. As of last night when I shut down the computer, the document is 38 pages long. That might not sound like much, but you’d be wrong. I’m not the lone ranger when it comes to false starts.
Not that I didn’t know what I was writing about the first time I started. It’s just that a story tends to take its own path, and it took me nearly 10,000 words the first time around for me to realize it wasn’t the path I wanted to take.
My story, my path, that’s my rule. An author’s got to have some say in this whole writing thing – heck, my first novel was about when the main character has no say in the creative process (in that case, music), and when I wrote it I didn’t have much say either. I think I’ll pass on doing that again.
Anyway, I’m making progress now with a story that’s so far going down a path I want to go down, and have blown by the false start’s word count. Other than that, I have nothing else to say about DG4 (I number the working titles with DG = Dark Green; DG2 – Stolen Sisters; DG3 = Cold Trail; DG4 the current WIP).
The coins in the photo above, marginally smaller in diameter than a dime, are based on author Sharon Shinn‘s Elemental Blessings fantasy series, which takes place in a kingdom where five essential elements rule all things and guide people’s lives through elemental blessings (you can read about what they are all about on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea). Shinn has published charts of the blessings, and several enterprising entrepreneurs have created coins, cards, and other objects that allow people not from that kingdom (you and me) to select blessings, too. The three in the photo are my blessings for this week: hope, resilience, innovation. They’re excellent blessings. Thank you Universe.
The photo on the right shows the obverse (front) side of random coins with their individual symbols.
Do I believe in Elemental Blessings? I don’t know. I’m an agnostic/athiest in many things but I don’t go around insulting what I don’t believe in. Besides, I’m a writer – it’s my job to accept fifty or more contradictory concepts at once.
So that’s my progress report for the beginning of August. And with that, I’m getting back to DG4. Books don’t write themselves, you know.*
Behold one of my daily blessings. Sadie is quite bored because I’m sitting at my desk again. But it’s 97° outside and I don’t want her running around top-speed like she prefers to do. Also, I don’t want to walk under that bright sun. I want to sit in the house, sweating, but writing.
Progress report over. New ideas are popping up – gotta grab them while I can. Otherwise the blessings stop bothering to come, ya know?
* Unless they are written with AI – SOMETHING I DO NOT DO. That’s because I write for the same reason I need to breathe. I don’t want an artificial lung breathing for me, and I don’t want an Artificial Intelligence generating words for me.
#Elemental Blessings #Scalzi #Shinn #Sadie
