Progress: exciting & scary

This messy new story is starting to fall into place, in my brain at least, if not yet on the page.

(maybe at the point to write a temporary blurb & throw it up on my website soon)

EDIT: a VERY loose/rough blurb is now on my website. You'll notice there's almost no mention of plot  as I'm not far enough into it to know that yet :p *forever-pantser*


So, where am I at?

Mostly it's the idea(s) behind the story that are coming together. See, every time I start a new story, it's because there was something in the previous story that I wasn't able to fully explore.

And, coming out of TRoRS edits... I've already admitted I was craving a super emotionally messy story/MC because N was so emotionally stunted, and neither of the MC's in SCARLIGHT or AotD were satisfyingly 'messy' enough... (of course I will go back to those stories at a later date).

Other things I'm going to explore:

More on the notion of fluidity in relationships. The boundaries/lines between 'friend' and 'lover', and how/when those lines blur. Like with N from TRoRS, I'm not overly interested in writing a story in which a character 'labels' themselves, instead what I like is a self-identity paradigm shift.*

Another aspect is, I'm building off some long email conversations with a writing buddy about things like vulnerability & power imbalances, something we're both really interested in (hence the obscene length of said email exchanges...). 'Roles' we play in our relationships, ruts we fall into -> especially 'bad' ones we come to accept as 'normal'. Things like consent and emotional manipulation/abuse... so, 'y'know, 'light' topics.

To balance that out, this is also (possibly) the funniest story I've ever written...

And... physical intimacy.  Literally there is more physical intimacy on the first couple pages than in the accumulated total of everything else I've ever written. And this scares the crap outta me, 'cause this is a whole new dimension that I've never worked with and am afraid I'm not going to be able to do it justice.

(I've made jokes before how, if I ever write a 'normal relationship', it'll be one of the surest signs of the coming apocalypse)

This story also has the biggest cast of characters I've ever worked with (which is daunting!)... or maybe it just feels like it? Well, secondary characters with their own arcs...

...when all these things add up together, I feel like this is going to be the most emotionally complex story I've written... and I'm already no slacker when it comes to that.

So, uhm, yeah. Lots of reasons to be terrified, but also lots of reasons that I'm crazy excited and obsessed with this new story. It still doesn't have a proper title though :p


But voice? Oh yeah, that's totally the easy part ;)

BeBe (the MC) is already coming off the page, just the way I like 'em ;p




* This may be an unpopular belief, but I tend to think that labels are often more about the people around us than about ourselves. As in, we label ourselves to make it easier for the people around us to understand us ...and we are so much more than a string of easily-memorizable labels.