Wednesday Wanderings

So as I continue to do planning for my next novel, I've come to realize I will probably need to build a glossary for both point of view characters.  The magic system involves synesthesia, and both characters are magic-users.  Their forms of synesthesia, however, are very different, which means that given the same scene, both would perceive it with unique aspects.  That said, synesthesia is consistent within the individual, which means that to save my sanity, I have to keep track of the links I create without constantly having to search back through the manuscript.  I also have a couple other magic using characters in the storyline, which may mean making notes on how they "see" (or otherwise) things.

I am planning to have a few conversations revolving around the narrators seeing another character through different lenses.  I also might make a point of describing a significant landmark or two, but I haven't decided yet.  Certainly I want to make sure that I do pay attention to the synesthesia and not just brush it off as an intermittent special effect, and I think setting up a glossary will help keep me focused.

Story sale!

I've just sold my fantasy story "Waterways" (which has a particularly entertaining backstory that I'll share ... some day) to StoryHack Action and Adventure, due out in Issue #6 (probably near the end of the year).

Wednesday Wanderings

Happy (slightly belated) book birthday to Scylla and Charybdis!  My sprawling, epic science fiction novel came out in April of 2018.  It garnered some lovely reviews, and I'm still terribly proud of it ... especially as I never thought of scifi as my wheelhouse.  It was a book I didn't really want to write at first:  it started as a short story which editors kept saying needed to be a novel, and oh, I fought that.  I also never expected, when I started writing, how important the homebase of the story would be.  When I started writing Scylla and Charybdis (as a book), I envisioned it as a milieu novel, an exploration of a universe undertaken by an outsider.  But as I wrote the opening sequences, I realized how important Anaea's home was to her, and how it would inform the whole rest of the story.

So much happened in the writing of that book I never pictured.  I had no idea the character of Flick would pop into existence, all but fully formed from the first sentences.  I didn't realize how deeply I would end up delving into the politics of the warlords and the matriarchs.  I didn't know where Anaea would finally find her place, only that we would discover it together.

New Coat of Paint

So with my life settling out a little - for now - I've had some mental bandwidth to devote to other things.  I've decided to try out a few experiments with upgrading my social media presence. 

On Twitter - @lindseycduncan - and my Facebook author page - LindseyDuncanWriter - I'm going to be sharing images and links of the fantastic and the funny under the hashtag #UnicornIsle.  I've always had an affinity for unicorns, and Unicorn Isle is the "imprint" name of my harp CD, Rolling of the Stone, so it seemed fitting.

This won't affect this blog too much, though I may write a few articles or share intriguing links, and of course, I'll continue to put up my SF/F Goodreads reviews, as well as nonfiction / other books I think might interest readers and writers of speculative fiction.

Wednesday Wanderings

Having finished my draft of Surgeburnt, my fiction writing dance card has some free space, and I thought writing some short stories would be a nice change of pace.  I had a couple of ideas at the front of my brain, but they promised to be lengthy, intense, or both, and in my state of mind, I wanted something lighter and easier.  So I decided to write a short story about my Sniffer.

I mentioned this character a while back:  I came up with her as an alternate way to review my wine studies, by incorporating wine knowledge into a loose narrative.  I never wrote much of it and it was never intended to be a "real" story (too much infodumping), but I came up with the framework of an interesting setting and her backstory, and I thought ... why not use it for a short story?

The why-not, of course, is that I never named her ... and now, at the part in a stand-alone short story where I usually just pick a name and roll along, I've tumbled to a halt because I know I'm going to do more with the character, so the name is particularly important.  I'm sure some writers would say, "Just pick a name and change it later," but I can't do that.  As soon as I select a name, it and the character begin to adjust to each other.  Unnaming is nearly impossible for me.

You can imagine the headaches I've had when (ever so rarely) I have had to change a name ...