A Tiny Speck in an Indifferent Universe

Thank God! I managed to surpass the writer's block I had on that one part of the story (the part that took place during the dust-chase) and move on. I did this by, ironically, just skipping that part entirely. I realized that part of the reason that I was having writer's block there was that I couldn't think of anything interesting or logical that could happen during the timeframe in question, that would extend the plot point I had in mind to the length I had imagined for it. Indeed, there were numerous easy and somewhat interesting ways to move the story beyond that point and onto the next, the simplest and most straightforward of which I took in the end. The reason I was so hesitant to do this at first was really that, to be completely honest, I had sort of become fixed on a specific tone or pacing and was pretty much just pulling an authorial fillibuster until that part of the story was the right length... actual content and plot be damned. As soon as I gave that up, ev…

Now that I've finished one short story, and worked on the second draft of R&M a bit, I feel like I'm ready to return to my novel—especially since the short story turned out to be far longer then I expected. And, indeed, that's just what I've done.

Almost as soon as I returned to working on my novel, I felt a whole new set of inspiration come to me, and I've been trucking along at a somewhat reasonable pace. Not exactly speedy per se, but I've gotten past that one roadblock and have successfully concluded a few important plot-points and scenes much more easily then I expected; moreover, using inspiration from Dune's style in order to make my realpolitik more satisfying and logical has turned out to be an (I think) extremely successful plan.

Anyway, further updates will follow. For now, here's the opening "in-universe document" quote from the latest chapter:

The nature of politics is that of incredible, intricate complexity; the more complex…

Part I: The Little Black Book To those who have heard the story which I am about to relate to you, I have surely seemed quite firmly insane; and it is for this reason that I am so reluctant to describe the events which came to pass in those few weeks—several years ago—when I first saw that blasphemous doom-herald which, even now, I fancy I can see creeping across the blackness of space above. Even mentioning it, I shiver in the unnatural cold which seems to haunt me in these later years. But forgive me, dear reader, for it is not yet time for those speculations about what remains of my experience. It is best that I begin at the apropriate place in my tale—i.e. the beginning.
It began the day after my father died—having left me what little money and posessions he had in this world—as I was sifting through his antiquarian collection of books, research notes, and unpublished works. I had known for some time that, after his first few sucesses as a scientific journalist for one of the maj…

I recently saw a question on a Discord server that I subscribe to, about how to outline and/or put together your plot. Before starting Children of Abeona, I had done a lot of research on this, and finally arrived at a sort of composite method which I actually found to be quite useful, and which I mentioned in a previous blog post. I answered in that chat with a terse description of the method I use, but it set me thinking that it might make a good topic for a short article.

This method is kind of a combination of the "save the cat" or standard three-act method, and the Snowflake Method. I had originally intended to just follow the SM, but I found it far too involved and structured, leaving little to no room for the kind of problem-solving and inspiration which I find often happens between the known plot points—it essentially sucks the life out of all the characters and the process of writing itself. There was, however, some merit to it: a certain amount of further structure …

Well, that's that! I've finished the first draft of my ethical philosophy book, Rationality & Morality: An Understanding, which weighs in at almost two hundred pages and 66k words. It will, during the process of criticism (I have already distributed it to several friends with an interest in philosophy), probably expand in size, and there is still likely much I need to do to refine it, but still! The first draft, complete... I thought I'd never finish.

Now that I am finished, however, that means I won't need to be doing any significant, big chunks of writing. At most, during the revising process, I'll be writing new sections or paragraphs. And you know what that means? The time I've set aside each day for writing shit is now open for business! I'm going to start with some short stories, as I've got a whole bunch of great new ideas. I'm going to do all of them, as usual, in the Damocles Universe which I'm building out, of course. The first wil…