June 2023 Update
I have officially transitioned to working on MK2! I’m pretty happy where I tied of MK1 (although we’ll see how I feel about that when I eventually circle back to it). I am currently in the brainstorming phase, which from past experience lasts until I can’t take it any longer and just start writing. I suspect that will probably be around the fall sometime.
At the moment, I am finally having to sit down and map out the antagonist’s plans in great, gory detail. This is more than the general sense I could get away with in MK1 since the first book in a trilogy acts as an Act 1 in a story where things are still vague and the hero is not clear what’s going on and why yet. It’s why writing act 1’s of stories is so much fun, everything is new! Exciting! And you don’t have to worry about how it will fit at all! It’s also why editing sucks for my particular process.
This also happens to be why I opted not to publish book 1 or put it on submission until the others are written. Already, I almost made notes to revamp significant portions of MK1 to fit the detailed antagonist’s plans, but opted against it at this point. A lot of the plans came together pretty quickly, but there are still some issues to work through to create the skeleton of the larger plan. Once that’s done, I can start hanging some meat off it and mapping out where characters are/need to be and start forming chapters/scenes. Act II in a story is where the hero learns what their up against, so it makes sense MK2’s plot will by necessity reveal more of the antagonist’s detailed plans.
On the MS front, I finally buckled to reality to and hired a lawn service. I’m trying to look at as a forced investment in time, but it still feels like a step backward (not mention an unwelcomed expense). I started swimming laps in our pool for exercise. So far, I really like it. It’s a good workout and it doesn’t leave my leg weak and fatigued like the elliptical machine did. So mixed results over the past month on MS.
MS has slowly, but surely, reshaped my life: from finances, to what I’m physically able to do anymore, to reordering my priorities. On that last note, when there’s a real Damocles sword hanging over your mobility, it suddenly moves up all those bucket list trips and experiences you thought you would get to one day (most of us when we retire), but now you’re not sure if you’ll be able to do them twenty years from now. So, when I saw the opportunity to fly in a 1943 biplane as part of beach trip to Port Aransas, I jumped at the experience. It was an awesome experience, and one I am sure will make it’s way into the early 20th century steampunk series I started almost ten years ago now and will one day get back to.
