As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, my writing’s rather stalled out hard after the release of Victory of the Hawk earlier this year. I’ve released a couple of short stories for sale this past summer and fall, but that’s about it. I’ve been struggling to try to find the mental energy to keep going on other projects, and that’s been challenging–partly out of weariness with juggling the Kickstarter obligations with my obligations for Carina, and partly out of the simple fact that I do have a technically challenging day job, and it’s often difficult for me to muster enough mental oomph to pull words out of my brain when I get home from work in the evenings.
But I’ve gotten really tired of that state of affairs, and I think I’ve managed to replenish enough creative stamina to get back to work. SO!
I am very pleased to announce that I finally have some working titles for the three Warder universe novellas that are the final obligations I need to clear off my plate for the 2012 Kickstarter. To refresh everyone’s memories, these novellas are:
- What I was previously referring to as my “psychic chick of size” story, in which Elizabeth Breckenridge, a psychic in Providence, Rhode Island, must assist her client Ross Taggart in tracking down what or who murdered his sister Edith, the Warder of the city. This story now has the official working title “A Power in the Blood”. Bonus for those of you who have read Faerie Blood and Bone Walker: Luciriel, Queen of the Unseelie Court, will be making a guest appearance in this story. It’s actively back in being worked on again, thanks to Scrivener!
- A story featuring a tuba player who is recruited by the local Warder–a woman who also happens to play in the same community orchestra–to help her guide a migration of supernatural sea creatures when she discovers they’re being hunted. Possible working title for this story: “A Last Sweet Breath of Song”.
- And last but most definitely not least, an origin story for Millicent Merriweather, the Warder First of Seattle in Faerie Blood and Bone Walker, and how she first came to Seattle and became its new Warder. The possible working title for this is still kicking around in my head, but it’s likely to involve “Bone” somehow. (I realize this is repetitive given the title of Bone Walker, but there’s also a theme of “blood, breath, and bone” that I’m playing with here. I do however reserve the right to change my mind once I make it around to finishing this story up!)
I don’t have a target release date for these stories yet. I am however going to target finishing “A Power in the Blood”‘s first draft by the end of November, as a sort of unofficial Nanowrimo. December, the plan will be to hand that off to whoever would like to beta read it for me, while I shift over to writing story #2. Then I’ll need to finish writing Millicent’s story.
There is ALSO a potential fourth novella brewing in my head, one which will feature Christopher’s cousin Caitlin Hallett, and her imminent conflict about whether she’s going to take up her father’s mantle and be the next Warder of St. John’s–because she’s about to fall head over heels for Gabien Desroches of les Gardiens of Quebec. And when two young people of the Warder lineage fall in love, somebody is going to have to leave their home. In the meantime? They’ll have to save St. John’s, too.
I am not sure yet whether I will be releasing these stories for individual sale or whether I will do them as a collection. If I do the latter, chances are very high it will be under the title Walking the Wards.
Stand by for more data on this as it happens!
