Have just finished the first draft of a new novella entitled Love and Lycanthropy. It's my attempt to make a mark on the so-called 'paranormal romance' genre by excluding the sparkly vampires, whinging heroines, and the moody 'third-wheel' guy. Also conspicuously absent: the bullshit theme of 'chastity'. I'm fondly thinking of this as Twilight, the way I would have written it.
As always the story takes place on the planet Terra, not Earth. There are a few new elements added to the world this time around, especially ones that appear in The Werechicken. I'm pretty happy about that because I feel like what I'm writing isn't a load of individual pieces of work, but a single body of work, in many parts. Each story compliments the others and helps to build a more rich fantasy world, where while one set of characters are doing one thing, there is a completely different set of characters, in a completely different part of the world, having their own adventure. Sometimes they will cross paths, others will never know of each others' existences.
I didn't set out to write a novella with L&L. I set out to write another 8-10k piece like The Head Vampire. However, the story, and the characters, just ran away with me. I like it when they do that. They say that 'writers block' is when your imaginary friends won't talk to you anymore. I'm glad to see that my imaginary friends are chatty little buggers.
So what's next? Well right now I'm going to go watch an episode or two of Arrested Development, then head to bed. Tomorrow I shall do a complete redraft of L & L. Once that's good to go I have another new story to write about a soldier who is commanding a fleet of ships to track down some slavers. This will take place mostly at sea, but will also see some action take place on the Eastern Continent, and will also involve the mysterious 'floating country'. Ooooh! I can see you're just dying to read it! Since that's the case: I shall go without rest until it's done! (Not literally of course).
Goodnight.
S.J.
