Current Projects.
Jan. 23rd, 2011 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matt_doyleHopefully, this should make my babbling about word counts a little more accessible. So, what am I writing these days, anyway?
Section One: Novels: WHY ARE THERE MULTIPLE ENTRIES HERE, DAMMIT?
Many of you know that I've got one fully written but unpublished novel up under lock and filter already: Running In Her Veins, which is a classic gothic horror story (please do not confuse classic gothic and goth) about a kidnapped girl whose kidnappers claim to be protecting her from her biological father -- the head of an order of immortal demon-bound assassins.
A Stain Upon His Hands is the more ambitious sequel, which gets periodically put on hold when I realize that before I write the next bit, I have to hone my craft, because I'm not yet a good enough writer to pull it off. I've currently got about one and a half chapters done on this one, plus a few scattered fight scenes. In Running In Her Veins, Jordan and her friends are constantly confused and terrified. They've just discovered that magic exists, behind the scenes, and that a complex and conspiratorial web of warring factions underlie and influence what they've always seen as 'the real world.' In A Stain Upon His Hands, they're turning deliberately to explore and understand that magical community, hoping to find somewhere they'll be safe.
I'm really bad at summaries, and that one doesn't sound half as interesting to me as the work itself does, but at the moment I can't find better words. There's blood magic, unresolved sexual tension, and morally ambiguous immortals having shirtless swordfights, okay? One chapter is up and posted under lock and filter, viewable by request. (All of these are viewable by request unless I note otherwise -- let me know if you're interested, and I'll add you to the filter and show you where to find it.
The Hellion Prince is the other novel I'm supposed to be working on right now. It's dark fantasy, set in a kingdom called The Allotment, where exiled mage-lords have leased a land from the fey. Damarhis, a young magelord just coming of age, possessed of more style than sense, quickly gets wrapped up in treachery and revolutionary politics, caught between the crown, the first fey embassy, and an ancient undead mage with designs upon the throne. I'm just under a third of the way through this one, and post chapters as I finish them.
Then there's the newest project: The Knight of the Star, an Arthurian romance. My Yuletide story was 20,000 words long this year, and after writing it my brain had sort of a meltdown, pestering me constantly with questions (and luckily, answers) about what happens next. The projected outline runs between three and five novels and makes me want to bang my head against a wall, but I love Arthurian mythology and I'm certain that I can get at least the one book out of this, and then run screaming to safety.
Short Stories
Sir Dinadan's Tale- This is actually part of the next chapter of The Knight of the Star-- a self-contained story about how Arthur's sharpest-tongued knight gets into a riddling contest with three faeirie brothers. Should be done within the next week.
Mutilation of the Hermai- The Cthulhu Mythos in Socratic Athens. What started as a horror story about madness, politics, and Alcibiades is now oscillating between that and The Adventures of Plato and Xenophon, Boy Detectives. I'm not sure which of the two it will end up being.
Regardless, this is a story with a lot of penises in it.
Tumulus- A friend of mine suggested this one. Merlin, it is said, was an emissary to Arthur from the Old Ones of Britain. What it those Old Ones were the Great Old Ones? Cthulhu Mythos meets 'historically accurate' Arthur.
Projects on the Back Burner
Too numerous to get into. I'll get into it anyway, but not in this post.
Section One: Novels: WHY ARE THERE MULTIPLE ENTRIES HERE, DAMMIT?
Many of you know that I've got one fully written but unpublished novel up under lock and filter already: Running In Her Veins, which is a classic gothic horror story (please do not confuse classic gothic and goth) about a kidnapped girl whose kidnappers claim to be protecting her from her biological father -- the head of an order of immortal demon-bound assassins.
A Stain Upon His Hands is the more ambitious sequel, which gets periodically put on hold when I realize that before I write the next bit, I have to hone my craft, because I'm not yet a good enough writer to pull it off. I've currently got about one and a half chapters done on this one, plus a few scattered fight scenes. In Running In Her Veins, Jordan and her friends are constantly confused and terrified. They've just discovered that magic exists, behind the scenes, and that a complex and conspiratorial web of warring factions underlie and influence what they've always seen as 'the real world.' In A Stain Upon His Hands, they're turning deliberately to explore and understand that magical community, hoping to find somewhere they'll be safe.
I'm really bad at summaries, and that one doesn't sound half as interesting to me as the work itself does, but at the moment I can't find better words. There's blood magic, unresolved sexual tension, and morally ambiguous immortals having shirtless swordfights, okay? One chapter is up and posted under lock and filter, viewable by request. (All of these are viewable by request unless I note otherwise -- let me know if you're interested, and I'll add you to the filter and show you where to find it.
The Hellion Prince is the other novel I'm supposed to be working on right now. It's dark fantasy, set in a kingdom called The Allotment, where exiled mage-lords have leased a land from the fey. Damarhis, a young magelord just coming of age, possessed of more style than sense, quickly gets wrapped up in treachery and revolutionary politics, caught between the crown, the first fey embassy, and an ancient undead mage with designs upon the throne. I'm just under a third of the way through this one, and post chapters as I finish them.
Then there's the newest project: The Knight of the Star, an Arthurian romance. My Yuletide story was 20,000 words long this year, and after writing it my brain had sort of a meltdown, pestering me constantly with questions (and luckily, answers) about what happens next. The projected outline runs between three and five novels and makes me want to bang my head against a wall, but I love Arthurian mythology and I'm certain that I can get at least the one book out of this, and then run screaming to safety.
Short Stories
Sir Dinadan's Tale- This is actually part of the next chapter of The Knight of the Star-- a self-contained story about how Arthur's sharpest-tongued knight gets into a riddling contest with three faeirie brothers. Should be done within the next week.
Mutilation of the Hermai- The Cthulhu Mythos in Socratic Athens. What started as a horror story about madness, politics, and Alcibiades is now oscillating between that and The Adventures of Plato and Xenophon, Boy Detectives. I'm not sure which of the two it will end up being.
Regardless, this is a story with a lot of penises in it.
Tumulus- A friend of mine suggested this one. Merlin, it is said, was an emissary to Arthur from the Old Ones of Britain. What it those Old Ones were the Great Old Ones? Cthulhu Mythos meets 'historically accurate' Arthur.
Projects on the Back Burner
Too numerous to get into. I'll get into it anyway, but not in this post.
