On the one hand, I feel like I'm sitting a lot more on my next project ("story" sounds too informal, and "book" is just too conceited) much more than I ever have in the past. But on the other hand, this is kind of my first time starting out in this position. In the past, for one, I've been like a third of the way into the next novel by the time I finish the one before, while when I finished Sylv Vol II I was a handful of chapters into several and still dancing between them; and for another, I've always started them while in full-time education. I did technically start my current project while in university, but again, only a handful of chapters and ideas - now I'm really "starting" it, working full-time and putting real concerted effort into this blog and promotion of my books. It was different for Sylv Vol II, but in a different different way: that was preparing the next installment for a waiting (small) fanbase; this is something totally unrelated.
I used to get the hype and motivation to keep writing by getting chapter-by-chapter feedback from a very small community of other writers and fans on deviantART. For Sylv, it was by discussing character development and plot progress with people who already knew him and his story, or by posting meta on this blog. So to get the hype for my current project (in my own motivation more than anything), I keep wanting to talk about it... but I don't.
It's not like I have an excited fanbase of thousands who are waiting for any hint or announcement on this blog. There are a handful of people who know vaguely what I'm working on - character archetypes, vague worldbuilding, loose plot summaries - and I'm sure there are more who would be excited to know, but there's both a crossover and a distinction between those groups that I struggle to define. And I'm not totally sure where to take it. It's way too early to start promotion or make a release date announcement - what's the timeline supposed to be for that stuff? For me, it's like... a few months. But everyone important to me will already know loooong in advance what the story actually is and everything cool or shocking or funny that happens in it. How much do I reveal now? What can I mention in funny posts about how different it is to write than Sylvestus? Do I drop character names in blog posts? Do I start releasing art?
That's another weird thing. This is the deepest I've gotten into a project without doing any art for it. A huge part of it is definitely skill deficiency and anxiety: it's been a long time since I've done art properly and on a regular schedule; and the setting of this story is so different from my artistic strengths that I freeze up when I try to go about it. But I have been saying recently that I want to get back into my art more, so maybe this is the opportunity to push my boundaries and develop my skills. But part of it is also definitely that I'm a reeaaall attention-slut when it comes to my art. I don't get internet-hype because my art isn't nearly good enough, so I have to rely on friend-hype, and... well, no-one really knows any of these characters or their story yet. Why would they care? Of course, in reality, my friends are great and would hype me up no matter what, and would probably get excited if they had some cool art to check out, but when I'm sitting in front of my laptop with GIMP open and my tablet sitting in my lap for half an hour without drawing a single line, it's the anxiety that's winning the logic battle there. Man, it doesn't even have a title yet, still. And what will the motif be? As I complained to a friend recently, I've been doing Sylv promo so long I don't even remember how to make a poster or banner that isn't "parchment, line drawing, faint cursive, blood splatters, serif black text". I already did eyes, feathers, skulls, and moths for my covers, the f*ck else is there?
So I'm slowly forming a plan. I'm going to talk a little about The Next One in this post, I'm going to make an effort to create some art for it in the next few months, and then I'll make the official announcement much, much closer to the uhh... release date.
As I mentioned, this project doesn't have a title yet, but it has been referred to on this blog and in my personal life as City, City Novel, [Untitled City Novel], or various permutations therein. Any posts about it from hereon out will be tagged as city. It has five perspective characters, which, I am discovering, is a lot to go to from one (Dying Ember has three but it's been a long time since I wrote Dying Ember), and presents its own new challenges. As you might have guessed, its main - actually, its only - setting is a city. It's sci-fi. It's crime. It's not a murder mystery, but there are both murders and mysteries in it. It's very queer etc etc, but frankly I'm getting sick of the "judging books' merits by how many diversity boxes they check and ignoring every other aspect of quality" trend.
As for everything else? You'll have to piece that together from all the posts about it in the next few months-to-years, until the official announcement, eh?
[Image ID: a photo of Griffin McElroy from the My Brother, My Brother and Me TV show, a mid-30s white man with glasses, short brown hair, and a white shirt. He has an electronic screen in front of him displaying the text ".. you know ;)" in red, and is holding his finger to his lips while looking into the camera with a coy smirk. End ID]
