Start of July News

After writing about 20,000 words in five days, the draft of Qora’s novel is done! First readers and continuity checkers, assemble (if you haven’t already!). Link at the end of this entry!

 Some context! The first novel I started writing this year was not this one… it was Surela 2. I got three chapters into it when I realized that I needed to nail down some Very Important Events that were happening in the background… and it was while jotting down notes that I realized that those events were So Important that I couldn’t understand why they were in the background. That’s when I started Qora’s story. But Qora’s story was so complex, in terms of multiple revelations arising from multiple past series, that it was like writing through mud. Every plot point required information I hadn’t articulated or developed beyond hazy ‘something happened’ or ‘that works somehow.’ Things as varied as Qora’s background, to what Daqan’s been doing since Zafiil died, to how Well drive compresses distances, and more. In short, it’s not a surprise that it took me six months (!) to write a fairly lean book. And it consumed a lot of my thinking for half a year, to the point that I’ve forgotten a lot of my plans.

 I am not going to touch this book for at least a week… and ny task during that week is to try to remember what I was going to do with 2024! The sticker/magnet kickstarters were my stopgap to prevent my revenue numbers from crashing, because (somehow) I am still the only source of income for the household. But I think my backers are tiring at just the right time, because now I’m at liberty to do something else with the remainder of the year. I had one more planned (holy carp – holy cow – flying mango), but I might shelf it for a few months.

 I had a feeling that Qora’s story was damming up everything else, in particular the first half, was damming everything else up… and it looks like that was true. Flipping through my notebook I see I have plans for post-capstone conflict Peltedverse that look like a lot of fun (backfill Alysha’s books; do some historical novels like the Rapprochement; get around to Nieve’s girls; Second Chances; etc). I’m looking forward to that! But first I need to recover from the wreckage of 2024, because not releasing anything for half a year is enormously disruptive, both financially and artistically.

 I’m really pleased, though… and I hope you all enjoy the book. I’m aiming for end-of-July/early August, and I want it to be special! But first, I’m going to breathe a bit and re-orient!

So, links, as promised:

First, Kickstarter’s still going: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mcahogarth/stray-cat-treasure?ref=e25qe3

Second, the Google Doc for Qora’s Novel: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CtI9aEaVuRkUORDhmU-ZlSaga6_vjL9YbyRRWz5qXnU/edit?usp=sharing

Comments in the doc, as usual; further discussion is in Discord in #Spoilery – Qora’s Story (a thread in #peltedverse). Spoiler: it’s mostly screaming XD