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Peluge’s Preposterous Adventures

See what Ice Wolf's blue furry investigator is up to today. Peluge's Preposterous Adventures

Ice Wolf Investigations News

Thanks!

Thank you very much for all the congrats and woohoos everyone.

I am always very happy to get to the end of a book, firstly for the joy of completion (yes, I know there are still revisions to be done, that's beside the point, there are always revisions to be done), and secondly because it means I'm allowed to switch to a different project. >:)

So long, elegant-and-witty-court-intrigue! Hello again action-oriented-space-opera-pastiche starring Bambi Wysorickovitz the barbie-doll-blonde investigator with purple eyes.

Kind of cool that I'll be back to working on this one just when the anthology with the related short story comes out. (So that no one coming in late will get confused, I am referring to “Frozen Witness” which will appear in stores as part of the POLARIS anthology shortly. The story is published as hard science fiction, and is not intended to be humorous, but nonetheless makes reference to a Dr. Wysorickovitz…)

Safe!

Eyes of Infistar word count: 107977

I'm done.
I don't really believe it, but I'm done.

I wrote all morning, over four thousand words, and now I'm finished.

I haven't started celebrating yet, because I'm still too astonished.

One first draft of Eyes of Infistar, completed. Whee!

It took me almost exactly a year, which was twice as long as it was supposed to, but there was all that stuff with me trying to get school going on in there as an excuse.

Yay! Yay! Yay!
Okay, I'll be calm now. Really.

You know, I ought to go have lunch. I think I forgot to have breakfast, and I seem to have gotten lightheaded.

Sliding Home

Eyes of Infistar word count: 103840

I'm definitely almost done, I hope to have it wrapped up in the next 6000 or so words, and I doubt it will take me 6 days, because it's hard for me to make myself stop writing this close to the end (besides, my schedule says that I was supposed to be done on the first. Two weeks over isn't too bad, I don't think.)

End of Eyes in sight

Eyes of Infistar word count: 97205

I'm almost done, I think. I've been guessing at about 100 000, and I'm pretty sure I'm not quite going to get it by then, but very, very close. If I don't finish this week, I'll finish next week. Celebrate finishing the draft at the same time as I celebrate my birthday maybe.

Made it!

Eyes of Infistar word count: 91341

Despite all kinds of craziness around this place (installing wood floors, kids throwing up, car dying) I made my quota for the week.
Yay!

I'm getting pretty close to finishing the rough draft of Eyes. Which realization has set me to thinking of new projects — although that's not as obvious a connection as it might sound, because I already have the next three projects lined up, but I like to plan a long way in advance, and then make changes as necessary. After I draft Eyes, I polish Winds. After I polish Winds, I draft Pavanne. Then on to Asolde II and Ice Wolf II. I want to do two in each setting, because if I sell, I will then have a sequel ready to push right away, I will easily have time to get a third book done before the second one comes out, and I will have given my career the best possible start with three books in a single series coming out at (hopefully) six month intervals.

But if by the time I have finished the second Ice Wolf book I have not sold Cantata, Winds or Eyes, what then? I won't be able to convince myself to go for a book three without some indication that someone would actually be interested in buying the series, I don't think.

So, if this should come to pass, I have decided to take six months away from writing novels, and do an illustrated web-serial or a comic strip of some kind instead. “Starblast in Space” probably. And then I'll pick one of my “Tolsequo” stories to do. (Which don't all take place in Tolsequo but I have to call them something, and calling them my “Shakespeare Stories” might be a bit misleading. These will be on the same world as Cantata, but I don't consider them the same set because they have a very different mood, and they take place on the other side of the continent.) And then I guess I try out the YA series in the Cultivator universe. Why not?

There, that should keep me busy until 2010 or so.

Almost… :::sigh:::

Eyes of Infistar word count: 83972

I didn't quite make my quota, I was just over a thousand short.
Somehow the presence of mildew in the air, always seems to make my brain turn off. It also makes me sleepy.

The mildew also interfered with my preparations for my first meeting at my new Writer's Group (tonight!), too. Not too horribly though, I hope. There were only two ms. up for critique and I've read them both and prepared a few comments (Boyd re-bleached the carpets, and I seem to be doing a bit better today.) My own submission (an outline for Cantata) didn't go up until yesterday, though. Ouch!

Speed Bump

Eyes of Infistar word count: 72129

I didn't even come close to making my quota this week.
I've been spending the time I usually spend writing making sure my children get caught up in their schoolwork.
Somehow I will work this out, but it might take a while, so the odds of me making next week's quota are not favorable.

Another week's Quota made

Eyes of Infistar word count: 64764

Despite a cold and Thanksgiving I've written my 5000 words for the week already. 🙂
Now I guess I better get on to other things, like, er, housework, and entering the kids' school hours.

Author's Note on the Cultivator Universe

I had created two fantasy worlds, and wanted to do a science fictional one. But I kept having problems. I could build a science fictional universe around a story (see Black Flag for an example of a universe built around a specific story) but to just build one that stood on it's own was for some reason giving me trouble. I finally realized that it was because I was tripping over the fact that science fiction universes are often seen as a continuation of ours: a possible future. My imagination was choking over my conviction that I was incapable of guessing what the future would be.

So instead of creating a possible future, I created an impossible one.

As soon as I had detached the universe I was building from the real world and real life, by centering it on a concept that was scientificly impossible, I was free to be as scientificly rigorous as I wanted to be in everything else. At the same time I remained free to ignore scientific realities when I thought they were getting in the way of a good yarn. The best aspects of both worlds were mine to play with.

Keywords: Cultivator, Science Fiction,

Quote from Eyes of Infistar
 
'If that's a professional attitude, I'm a blue ape.'
 
-- Bambi Wysorickovitz
 
 
Copyright © Michelle Bottorff

Email mbottorff at lshelby period com