Identiverse News and Notes

Original writing's taken a bit of a back seat with me in recent months - when the going gets stressful, the stressed revert to tried and tested universes! - but with my work situation getting progressively more precarious, it's past time for me to start doing some serious efforts in this direction.

To that end, I've got three new projects on the go (or about to be on the go, at least)

Project 1 - Untitled WW Short Story
What is it?: It's going to be a short story in the 1700-2000 word length category which is the right length for submissions to various women's magazines (in the first instance, Woman's Weekly).

What genre is it?: Family/humour

Who are the main characters?: Janice, a thirty-something single woman and Noodle a comfortable ginger tom cat who, at least in his own opinion, runs the household.

Doesn't sound like high literature...: Well, no; but it will be a fun story to write and, hopefully, entertaining for people to read.

Tag: UWW1

Project 2 - Exercising The Demons
What is it?: Another short story, this one will be longer than project 1 - probably in the range of 5000 words and, again, destined for submission to various women's magazines (and again, Woman's Weekly will probably be first)

What genre is it?: As if the pun in the title doesn't give this away, humour/family

Who are the main characters?: Marie, a frumpy thirty-something secretary stuck in a rut and Linda-from-sales, her friend.

Tag: Demons

Project 3 - Honour and Justice
What is it?: This is a spec radio script for the BBC, centring around the Norse myths.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute, radio script?!: Ayup

Huh; I thought you only wrote stories: Mostly, I do. But sometimes I like to challenge myself. In this case, it originated as an OU assignment for my last course, and with the BBC operating things like The Writer's Room, I have absolutely nothing to lose (except the cost of the postage!) in polishing it up and giving it a try.

Tag: H&J


None of these, of course, mean I've dropped any of my other projects, and there's other ideas also currently being rolled around in the back of my mind. It's a case of tossing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks and doing as much writing of all kinds as I can to keep my brain exercised, ready and willing!

I've been meaning to do this for a while *cough* Ah well. Better late than never.

What this journal is going to be for, in the main, is my original writing. Mostly, this is going to amount to a large number of semi-incoherent blatherings as I try to keep my ideas straight and nailed down, but it may also feature the odd homeless short story and some of the writing exercises that I've done for the two OU Creative Writing courses. (It probably *won't* feature any of my actual OU assignments for the time being - I need to check what the rules are about posting those, for one thing, and I really, REALLY don't want to inflict my rather pathetic attempts at poetry on anyone who didn't already have to see it [ie my poor and unfortunate tutor!] - but there are a couple of those that will probably see the light of day in due course.)

Once I've got stuff to the point of submissions, I'll also probably post a record of that process so that I can keep a track of it, but exactly what form that aspect of this journal will take is up in the air at the moment - to submit, one must have submittable work and right at this point, I don't think I have anything that's really and truly ready.

For anyone who's not really that acquainted with me/my writing/my past (mis)adventures, firstly: Hello! Nice to see you :) Secondly, you're probably wondering what it is I write. The answer is that, broadly speaking, I can and will write anything (except poetry - see above). The overwhelming majority of what I write is probably best classed as urban fantasy - think Jim Butcher's Dresden Files - although I tend to be less "vampires and werewolves" and more "gods and myths" and I tend not to be terribly gritty, so maybe urban fantasy lite might be a better term! In between dealing with Norse God librarians (!), I also write semi-historical kidlit and there are one or two projects that I have in mind that aren't either of those two genres.

For anyone here expecting (or hoping for) erotica, sorry, but you're probably in for a long wait. I have written it in the past, but it's not something I have any plans for any time soon. Equally, anyone here looking for information on my fanfic writing, sorry but you're in the wrong journal! For fanfic, please wander by my LJ instead (it's the same username!). (NB The erotica thing stands for the fanfic, too!)

With all that out of the way, I'm going to outline the main projects I have on the boil. There will be posts about them the line and I'll try to remember to tag stuff so that if you're just interested in one project, you can easily find all the information.

In no particular order...

Project 1 - Freya's Daughter
Carrie Evans thought that she was just an average student, but a series of strange encounters lead her to a startling discovery and a challenge that, if she fails, will bring about the end of the world!
This started out as my 2006 NaNo story, and it started out as just a fun way to play with Norse mythology. What I've ended up with is a half-way decent story and a universe that is just too much fun not to play with further.

As it stands at the moment, there are three stories in the universe:
-Freya's Daughter
-Jupiter Rising
-The Mask of Arthur
Each one has a main theme of Norse mythology running through them. Jupiter Rising adds in a Roman thread while The Mask of Arthur adds in chunks of British myth and history.

For more information, check the tag "freya"

Project 2 - A Chinese Adventure
When the Lambert clan decide to go and join the family plantation in China it's only natural that Ruth Watson, Anne Lambert's neice and ward, should go with them and begin the adventure of a lifetime.
About four years ago, I acquired a copy of the un-cut "Gay from China at the Chalet School" and was duly intrigued by what I read. It was pretty clear from EBD's words that she intended to, at some stage, tell the full story of the Lamberts' time in China (in the same way as she DOES tell the Culver family story and the story of the lost staircase - all of which get referred to in this book, too!) but she ended up never actually writing it down. Naturally, I got curious. When I get curious, I start writing...

...the end result is a fill-in story that the current rights holder for the series (Girls Gone By Publishing) are interested in.

For more information, check the tag "china"


There are other projects that I have simmering away and that are much less defined right now, which I will outline if/as/when they come into full being. Look for posts tagged "outline".

And that, I think, just about covers it.

Happy reading!