Belated update

[aadler]

 
Hard to believe I let nearly two weeks go by without posting something here. To a large extent it was because I didn’t feel I had anything to say; but, honestly, that’s not quite so.

I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from SRoni, who’s working on the draft of a sequel to “God Save the Queen”, with the plan that I’ll collaborate with her once she has a completed story. (Bit of background here: SRoni is the cheerful young lady who accompanied me to WriterCon 2004. She had shown me the original concept of “God Save the Queen” a long time before, then got bogged down in the execution. I was so captivated by her central character that I appropriated her — with the author’s after-the-fact approval — in my own “Each Proud Division”. SRoni, in her turn, was stimulated by my use of her character, and went on to finish “God Save the Queen”. Then we agreed to do the sequel together.)

Unfortunately, her news was that she had lost the backpack containing the notebook that holds all her draft on the story. I don’t mean ‘misplaced’; the backpack fell out of a van in one state, and she didn’t find out about it until after reaching another state. I have some idea how that feels (I had half of “Perish the Thought” blow away while I was spending the night at an abandoned Republican Guard base in Iraq, and had to reconstruct the missing pages), but for someone who writes at SRoni’s speed, it’s catastrophic. I’ve been waiting a year for the sequel, and may have to wait another. I love the girl, but I wish she would learn to just sit down and write, every single day. Productivity is a product of steady consistency, simple as that.

liz_marcs acknowledged some comments I had posted on her LJ, and added me to her Friends list; I immediately returned the favor, so I’m suddenly less alone out here. That doesn’t feel bad at all. I haven’t specifically sought company, but I enjoy it, and if I could only have one LJ friend, it would be Liz.

I had told SRoni that, after finishing “Phase Shift” (which, once again, I owed to one of her original ideas), I intended to start on a story that I’ve had in the back of my mind for over two years, maybe longer. And I will get to it, but between then and now I had another idea crop up, and that little internal voice is telling me that I have to do the new story first. Shouldn’t be too long — I keep thinking that, and being surprised — and I’m almost (but not quite yet) ready to begin on it. My ambition is to be finished before the end of October. I sincerely believe I can do that … but it would be reassuring, maybe, if I ever got started on it …

So there we are. More as I know it.

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