If it’s so seekrit, why even mention it at all?
Not to be a tease…
Not to make myself feel important…
Not to flatter myself by making people try to pry the details out of me…
I mention it so my readers will know that I’m working on something, even if I can’t discuss the particulars.
I’ve chosen not to discuss the content and nature of this project until it’s done. But the problem is, if I say nothing at all about it, then it looks from the outside as if all writing has ceased.
I wouldn’t want you to think I wasn’t writing at all! I am, and whenever I can snatch time and energy away from the demands of the immediate, I’m off in my little world, hard at it.
So, just letting you know: Got a project. Working on it.
And in case you’re worried: I have NOT stopped writing the Steerswoman Series. The Project is a much shorter work, and I’ll get back on the Steerswoman soon.
So… that’s why.
Now… why am I not discussing the particulars?
While I’ve been writing the Steerswoman series, I’ve also come up with lots of other ideas that are not in the Steerswoman series. I’ve had to set them aside, make notes, put them on the back-burner, because I wanted to use what time I had for the Steerswoman.
But some of the ideas were so interesting that I just couldn’t help discussing them with friends and other writers.
At length. In detail.
And written bits, and then shown to friends and other writers. And gotten tons of feedback, mostly positive.
And that’s fun! The admiration of my peers! Oohs and ahs from the listeners!
Which just encouraged me to keep on talking.
As a result, some of those ideas have been talked to death.
They feel done. There’s no need driving them any more, no urgency to communicate.
This is a real phenomenon that happens with writers sometimes. I seem to recall that the term is something like “Bar Stories”. The ones you tell other writers about in the hotel bar at conventions year after year, but which mostly never get written.
Do I want that? I do not!
So I thought I’d try something: I took a newly-minted idea, one that I had told no one about, had never discussed at all, had never written a word of, not even outline or analysis — and just started writing it.
And I don’t get to discuss it until it’s done.
Then, I can crow and gloat — or moan and groan, as appropriate. And work on rewrites, if that’ll help. Show it to the Genrettes, and Sabine, and my pals, etc.
But not until there’s a complete first draft. Them’s the rules.
So, that’s it. Seekrit Project. Not Steerswoman. Shorter form.
Won’t say more than that.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
You will be forgiven on the condition that when the Seekrit project is completed you let us all buy a copy.
February 17th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Sandie —
Aha! It’s a deal!
Unless it turns out crappy. Then, I’ll just announce the fact and print it out so I can burn it in private…
February 18th, 2011 at 10:33 am
Hmmm … I think we could agree on that as long as the judge of “crappy” is someone impartial.
March 23rd, 2011 at 11:10 am
My new job starts in 15 minutes. But I just found this website, and I’m glad I did. Because I’ve been wanting to nag you about the steerswoman series for years now – I’ve left comments intended for you on at least 4 other sites (I think Powells, and that other big book site, and I forget where else).
And then I read this, and realize that you have to follow your own muse. So great. Muse, yours, follow her, blah blah.
OK, but also, in the 10 minutes I have left… please, I hope the next steerswoman book begins to resolve more plotlines than it opens. Because my daughter’s 6 now, and since before she was conceived, I’ve want to read the series aloud as a family with her. Before she’s all grown up. And unless you start writing a little bit faster, the books are going to continue to overflow with new ideas – overflow into the next book and the next book and the next book, instead of just being properly chock-full of themselves.
March 23rd, 2011 at 11:11 am
oops. That should read “chock full, in and of themselves”. I didn’t mean “full of themselves” of course.