Tag / future projects

by laurenalder

“If E.L. James can do it, why can’t you?”

Thus spake my Beloved Husband, a couple of days ago during a conversation about growing my author brand and keeping the momentum going following the publication of “The Codex of Desire”.

Now, we all know what E.L. James did, right?

And we all know how mind-bogglingly successful she wound up being, yes? (At least on the sales front.)

Looking at straight-up numbers, I have almost 1.25 million words of fan fiction under my belt, including quite a few longer finished stories.

I’ve read some E.L. James, and I think I’m a few notches above her on most of the technical fronts. No false modesty there. 

I’m also no stranger to editing and revising. (Dear Gods, eight full passes on “Codex”… I still get the cold collywobbles just thinking about it.)

So — why not rework some of my fan fiction, retro-engineer those pieces into original universes with original characters, and use them to pump up that good ol’ author brand?

On the one hand, I know that some of my fanfics are cracking good because readers have told me so. (In fact, I’ve had some readers tell me that they’ll read anything I write, in any fandom, because they just love my writing style that much. That’s a pretty big vote of confidence.)

On the other hand… is there an other hand? The story concepts are my own story concepts. Put in my own characters and they become something new unto themselves.

Something I can publish to Amazon and Smashwords, to keep the pipeline flowing and my audience satisfied — and hopefully to attract new readers. M/M romance and erotica are very hot (pardon the pun) commodities right now. And I have a lot of stories in that genre, just waiting to enter the public arena.

My Beloved Husband’s words have certainly got me thinking. Does anybody have further pros or cons to bring to my attention? 🙂

by laurenalder

NaNoWriMo 2018: “Where Darkness Falls”, The Understructure

I mentioned that 2018 will be my third take on “WDF” — the first being during NaNo 2011, the second during NaNo 2012. In 2011 I racked up 4072 words on the project, but in 2012 I managed to crack out 51874 words (winner winner, NaNo dinner!), which did not finish the first draft, unfortunately. For the next two years I worked on different projects (“Hateseed” in 2013, another win, and “Micro Noir” in 2014), then tackled “The Codex of Desire” (winner, 2015).

Come 2016 I listed “WDF” as my NaNo project, but after expending so much energy wrapping up the first draft of “Codex” that year I ended up taking a long rest that included November, and thus I racked up a zero word count for “WDF”. Subconsciously I was abiding by a profound inner truth: if I split my attention between two novels, I would never get “Codex” done. I’m one of those authors who needs to concentrate on a single major project at a time. So — “WDF” was set aside, as much as I love the damned thing, until “Codex” was finished, edited, and finally published.

Why do I say “the damned thing”? Because “WDF” (unlike “Codex”, which was elegant from the start and flowed as smooth as fresh cream) is without doubt a problem child.

For one thing, it takes place in 2038 in Chicago — a city I have visited only once, necessitating a HUGE amount of research and a lot of guesswork. (Why, oh why did I have to include the city’s underground tunnel system as a key aspect of the story? Because the story demanded it, that’s why! *lays head on desk*)

For another thing… did I mention it takes place in 2038? Cue a lot more research, and stretching my imagination to come up with appropriate technological advances. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of fun! But anybody who writes into the future is always a bit anxious, I think, about how well their novel will “age” as the year it’s set in draws closer.)

For another other thing, it involves a Southern Baptist main character, and I am SO anxious to portray the belief system with both its warts and its stellar points, just as I’m anxious to portray Wicca (Kavelin’s religion) in the same way.

Speaking of characters… neither Anderson nor Kavelin is particularly likeable at the beginning of the story, at least not to me. I adore them AS characters, but they’re both bigots and they’ve both got a mean temper on them. Yes, they WILL learn and grow as the novel progresses, but there’s a certain amount of anxiety involved in writing characters who aren’t congenial from the first paragraph.

And not lastly (but last for now), this project involves writing a scene toward the end which has torn my heart out even in the drafting phase, so I know that putting it down word for word will leave me shaken and probably in tears.

No, “WDF” is a novel that is going to stretch me and test me in ways that “Codex” did not (and believe me, “Codex” turned out to be both a marathon and a gruelling gymnastics routine).

And you know something?

I can hardly wait.

Bring it on, NaNo 2018! 🙂 Let’s get that first draft DONE!

by laurenalder

NaNoWriMo 2018 Project: “Where Darkness Falls”, Take Three

Yep, you read that right: NaNo 2018 will be my THIRD kick at the “WDF” can.

I started the project during NaNo 2011, based (if I recall correctly) on a single potent mental image which came to me out of the blue a couple of months before NaNo that year. I’m a comic book colourist by trade, and what I saw in my mind’s eye was a splash page in the style of Charlie Adlerd’s “X-Files” work, painted all in muddy greys: a nightmarish figure, half-woman and half-crow, rising into the night out of a grove of November trees. The shot was taken from around chest level of the figures on the ground: a man and a woman, each carrying a slightly futuristic handgun. They were watching the crow-woman rise with anger, but without fear, while the policemen around them looked utterly terrified.

I knew that at their feet (out of the shot) lay the remains of a grisly human sacrificial victim, his heart torn out by the crow-woman’s beak. And that was the moment when “WDF” was born, although it took me a while to figure out who everybody in the shot actually was.

The woman turned out to be Tatiana Kavelin, a Manifester/Special Ops Agent with the Department of Paranormal Investigations (DPNI), Chicago Office, Wiccan Division. The man was Jeremy Anderson, a Manifester/Special Ops Agent with the DPNI, Chicago Office, Christian Division. The crow-woman was… well, I want to avoid spoilers, so let’s just say that she’s also a Manifester but definitely NOT dedicated to serving the public good.

What is a Manifester? Briefly stated, a Manifester is a human being who manifests supernatural abilities in line with their religious or spiritual beliefs. The earliest recorded tale of a Manifester dates back to the Babylonian Empire — a story not known (or at least not spoken of) among non-Manifester historians — when Hammurabi decreed that the strong should not overwhelm the weak, and established the Children of Marduk to protect those without special spiritual gifts. The Children of Marduk were tasked with hunting down and destroying any other Manifester who did not swear to nurture the rest of humankind. After the collapse of Babylon, and through all the millennia that followed, the Children of Marduk carried out their mission in secret, although the names and structures of their organizations changed to suit the times. And the predatory Gifted, who were persecuted by them, lived even deeper in the shadows, vowing that one day they would rule the world as was (to them) their birthright by virtue of their Powers.

Agent Kavelin and Agent Anderson, who must work together by order of their superiors but who loathe each other across the divide of their very different religions, find themselves the only ones guarding the safety of the vast majority of humankind — who have no idea that the DPNI exists, or that the Gifted are striving to bring about Armageddon. Thus the central question of the novel: Can they overcome their mutual antipathy in time to avert the end of civilization as they know it?

More about “WDF” in tomorrow’s post. For now, here are my “face claim” pictures for the two main characters.

Nick Tag as Jeremy Anderson:

nick-tag_as Jeremy Anderson

And Idina Menzel as Tatiana Kavelin:

idinaMenzel