I’ve hit a bit of a lull, as is probably apparent for anyone who might (casually?) be following what’s happening here. I’ve gotten past the initial massive effort of writing Rough Times in Osaka and have gotten it to “First Draft” status. Yeah, that’s a pretty big deal. But, now that it’s there … what do I do with it?
Ok … first off, for the book — I know that I’d like to get some other eyes on it (aside from just those of my Research Assistant(s)). And I need other eyes which are able to be a bit more critical and discerning, rather than just ensuring I don’t trip up anywhere in those areas which are cultural or … topic-specific. I’ve been reassured that there’s nothing in there which would be insulting to the … *ahem* … “wrong people” (yeah, go ahead and use your imagination with that one). And the book itself “feels” good.
But I’d still like to get some more eyes on it. I’ve reached out to a few people to inquire if they’d be willing, interested, and available. Thankfully, I’ve gotten positive responses back, but all in the “can’t right now – but I can in a little bit” category, so there’s not much I can do about that except wait for time to pass.
I’ve got the book cover to work on, but, realistically, aside from tentatively reaching out to see if there’s any way possible to get some actual photographs taken, that’s also going to wait. If I can get pictures that match my cover idea, that’s awesome. If not, I’ll need to go with commissioning artwork of some sort, and I’d rather hold off on the expense of that until as late as possible – not to mention that I’ll also need to get sizing for the book, so I can get sizing for the cover image. [As I think I mentioned before … I have already done this, but it was self-publishing a book to become a “family heirloom”, so I didn’t have any concerns with artwork that would be used as part of a salable item.]
I do still have the Pub Tales which I’d like to get back to. And, in that regard, I finally have the nugget of an idea for the next Tale … again – these will be tropes / archetypes, but I’m picturing the Supreme Magic Bad Guy(tm) having a chat in the pub with the Evil Space Emperor(tm).
“I really wish I’d kept track of all of my Mugs of Power when I moved to the new dungeon. You’d think I would’ve realized that I’d lost my Ultimate Mug of Power, right? And then some stupid idiot thought to reglaze it and put it in a kiln! And he had the heat turned up too high, damn it! That thing cracked in an instant and all the magic leaked out. What am I supposed to do now?”
“You think you’ve got it bad? I want to find the guy who designed my Planet Burster! Turned out that if someone set a microwave oven for exactly 16 seconds in Staff Room B024-G854-F and then started it at exactly the same time that someone else flushed a toilet in Section 872-57D … the whole thing blew up! What kind of moron puts that into a design spec, I ask you?”
Presumably you can not only see who the (obvious) trope characters are, but where that one goes, huh? Not sure if just the two of them are enough for a decent conversation or if I need to throw a third into the mix. The story is still doing its thing in the back of my head.
But … beyond all of that, I am also suffering through a bit of an … emotional crisis — for something which hasn’t happened yet.
Yeah, that sounds really messed up, right?
Unfortunately, one of my … “intellectual gifts” … is the ability to put lots of “pieces” together and see how things do (or don’t) make sense and also can be reasonably good at predicting what will happen as a result of that — at least barring any other external influences. [It’s the “tinkering” from outside that throws me off, ever single time.]
In this case, the topic is highly charged and both too personal and too sensitive for me to be able to even talk about it — with just about anyone. But, when the final piece happened to “fix things in place” about a year ago, I’d sort of been waiting to see how things developed. So far, I’ve not seen anything to give me an indication I’m wrong about the trajectory of this particular chain-of-events. And, yes, that is all I’m saying about this topic at this time.
