For the past two weeks, I have been ill. First, a head cold, and then that traveled down and made itself at home in my lungs. I hadn’t gotten any writing done between the last post and last Thursday (when I finally started feeling human again).
That being said, I have managed to turn that around. As of the 14th of July, I had 15,000 words, and five chapters. As of today, I have 25,000 and nine chapters written. So, yes: progress is being made. And I do plan to churn out another chapter tonight.
Like with The Godshead and Highway to Tartarus, the chapters of Fire and Forge are self-contained, but interconnected short stories. There’s a bit of a plot–boy meets girl, stuff happens, they overcome stuff, and work on happily ever after (because that takes more work than overcoming the stuff to get to the ever after part)–but not a whole lot other than that. There are some that are bright and fun, and some that are darker and more depressing, much like life.
And yes, I fully acknowledge that few are interested in mythology, but the characters won’t shut up until I’ve written their stories.
At the rate I’m going, I’m hoping to have this finished within another three weeks or so. I really am. I won’t count on it, but there’s a chance… and then I can rewrite it and then hand it off to beta readers.
I’m still playing with several different novel ideas for over November (when my students will be working on their research paper) and December (when we’re out for Christmas break), but don’t know yet which one will decide it’s ready to be written.
I’ll just have to see which characters in my head are the loudest and the most annoying when the time comes…