writing – Elspeth Cooper

Well. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it’s certainly been flying around here. How the heck is it November already?

As to the “having fun” part, well, yes I have been, actually. Writing-wise I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately. Made some progress, despite my brain’s attempts to sabotage me, and all the disability-related embuggerances I have to put up with day-to-day. So since some of you have been asking, here’s an update on the Work In Progress.

The Dragon House

The manuscript itself is sitting at around 212k. There’s some fat still to trim, a couple more darlings to slay, and parts of the final act to put in place, so that’s not it’s final length, but expect a chunky book. It will be bigger than its predecessors, but that’s typical of a series-ender, as I’ve said before. There’s lots of moving parts to bring to an orderly stop, and of course a bazillion opportunities for me to trip myself up along the way.

But it continues to become more and more book-shaped as time goes on. Yes, I’m still writing. No, I still can’t say when it will be done, but just so we’re clear, IT WILL BE DONE, and enpublicated, if I have to film myself reading it aloud on YouTube* to do it.

The (not-so) Sekrit Projekt

I know it’s taking me an embarrassingly long time to finish the Wild Hunt Quartet, so I totally get that I should not be thinking about new projects, but writers’ brains being what they are** I didn’t have much choice about it.

I’ve talked before about some spin-off novella ideas that have been percolating. There’s some very, VERY early stuff I wrote about Gair’s adoptive family that was pruned from the main story for reasons of space/relevance/pacing that I thought might make an interesting coda to the series, so I kept it. This is the basis of novella idea 1.

I also have a favourite character I’ve always wished I could have done more with, but there wasn’t room in Gair’s story to tell theirs as well. Enter novella idea 2.

The third novella concept concerns reckoning with the past while trying to find a way to move forward into a new life after your old one ends.

There’s a couple more ideas brewing as well, about historical events that are foundational to the Quartet as a whole, which I think might stretch the old writing muscles a bit.

So, five ideas. I’m being cagey with the details because spoilers, obviously, but also because this is the first time I’m putting these ideas out there as A Thing I Want To Do when the current Thing is finished. Something about them just made my brain go *ping*.

So what am I going to do with them?

Honest answer? I don’t know yet. I don’t even know if Wild Hunt novellas are something readers will want. All of them will round out the world and the reading experience, but none of them are critical to enjoying the Quartet as it stands (or will stand, or . . . you know what I mean). They’d be like bonus content or side quests. They’re not contracted works, I haven’t discussed them with my agent or publisher and I will not be touching *any* of them until TDH is buttoned up and delivered because that is my absolute priority.

But I have created a directory structure for them on my laptop, with the titles and a 2-3 line synopsis for each, because these stories were *clamouring* to be heard (see above re: writers’ brains). I had to write them down somewhere just to get them out of my head.

So. This is where I’m at. Apologies for the radio silence, but y’know. I’ve got a book to finish.

Featured image by Pexels on Pixabay

***

*and nobody wants to see that, trust me

**”SQUIRREL!”

Hey everyone, it’s been a while, eh? Sorry for the radio silence; the last few months have been A Lot and, well, *gestures at 2020 in general*

I thought it was worth doing a post to bring you the latest score on The Dragon House. Not everyone keeps up with my Twitter feed and I’m terrible at updating all my social media in a timely fashion, so here we go.

You will be pleased to know that things are chugging along and The Dragon House has reached the giddy heights (lengths?) of 158k. Gosh. Where will it end up? I’m not sure yet. I had a vague idea of 200k-ish, but there’s a lot of wheels in motion now and to bring them all to an orderly stop in the next 40k might be a big ask, unless I do what my husband jokingly suggests and type “Everybody died. The end.” Expect a chonky book, whatever happens. Whether it ends up as 225k or “Oh lawd he comin'” will depend on the final edit.

Image courtesy Graeme Weatherston at freedigitalphotos.net

I took a chance last week and re-organised the timeline again because the previous re-org, that I thought had finally fixed it, was falling apart in the third act. I’d arranged the book into four sections by character arc/region/objective, and whilst Parts I and II worked great, III was sketchy and IV was worse. Having one character several days ahead of the rest (if you’ve read The Raven’s Shadow, you know who I mean) and part of the action told on a plane of slow time with the rest in regular time was proving to be . . . you know what? I’m not even going to try to think of an appropriate metaphor. So I’ve put it all back into a straight chronological order, no cute stuff, and we’ll see how that goes.

It does mean the “things that happen to that character” part has had to cede some priority in the narrative to “the rest of the world catches up” part, which I am not happy about, but that’s the result of choices I made in the third book to get the ending I wanted so I have to live with that. I’ve tried to handle the overlap in a way that maintains some tension, but at this point I have to just concentrate on getting the story told and see what my beta-reader then agent then editor makes of it all.

The re-org turned out to have been a useful exercise, though. Pulling the story apart and putting it back together showed me a couple of places where I need to set some things up in advance of later action, and at least one place where I had to cut. The manuscript is now scattered with digital sticky notes like confetti. I love that feature of my word processor almost as much as I love real sticky notes. At least the glue on the digital ones never gives up.

So that’s the latest. Things are moving along, progress is being made. Stay tuned for further developments!