The story that finally caught me.....

As anyone reading this blog may have noticed, I've had a hard year getting going on any of my material. Part of it is the nature of my publishing-related work this year. I have two pieces that had to have considerable reworking done to them. Ada Nish Pura needs a lot of new material because the publisher really liked certain aspects and wants to see more of them. We're working through the novel in three chapter bits. However, the editor had some serious workto take care of elsewhere, so Ada is on hold.

Farstep Station needed to be cut from about 72k to 45k. In the first round of cutting I got it down to 48k, and it's sitting there for the moment, resting before I do another attack to smooth out the rough edges and nibble away at some more of the work. A good amount of the cutting came in two subplots, easily removed but with a few little threads still holding on that have to be snipped out. I would also like to cut enough that I can maybe add a longer intro scene.

Serendipity Blues got lost in the crowd. That's too bad, because it was going very well. I hope to get back to it soon. Kinship is also sort of on hold. I do a bit of work on both of them, hoping one of them will catch my attention --

But oddly, it's an entirely new novel that has really taken off. I've written over 20k in one week, and with barely 1k on the combined first and second day.

Every year I start a new story for my birthday. This year I choose the outline for Dancer. I had written the original novel about 20 years ago, and last year I sat down with that version and wrote an outline based on it. This has really worked well for me in the past, and I am very pleased with the version this time. The outline included any really good line or two that I liked, but for the most part just followed the plot with some new additions and a few problems worked out.

Dancer is the first book in a long series called Devlin's Team. She's a top IWCS agent. Cha, mentioned in the snippet below, is a top scientist. They have both found themselves working on the same case from differnt angles.

So here is a very short snippet.

The two guards left and she went on up and through the still open door. Cha was up, his long hair free of the braid he had worn yesterday, and he was dressed in a long robe of dark blue silk. The combined effect stopped her in her tracks -- he had turned into something entirely more exotic than she had expected.

He looked up from where he was standing by his computer and frowned. "Problem?"

"No, no. No problem." Oh dear God. I'm babbling. Make me stop! "Nice robe."

And lovely hair. That did not help.

He ran a hand over the robe. "Thanks. One of my few possessions from home." He flicked the long hair back over his shoulder. "Are you sure you're all right?"