Starting a New Project

Confession: I'm deathly afraid of getting Alzheimer's, although there's no history of it in my family. Memory issues in general bother me. I hated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and 50 First Dates was like a horror movie.

Reading:

• Master of the Cauldron, by David Drake
• Realms of Fantasy, June 2008

Writing:

• That's what this post will decide.

One thing this blog has done for me is to force me to keep a project going at all times. I've promised never to leave the "writing" heading up there blank. I can change it to "Revising," but that's it. And since I've revised "Illuminated" as much as I can get away with at this point, it's time to pick something new.

I have several projects outstanding. First, I could revise some more of my other stories, but I'm in a composing mood at the moment. Better to hit where the iron is hot, to modify slightly a cliche. Today will be for writing.

I could also start something new. The Accentuate Writers Board is sponsoring a contest with a June 30th due date, but I don't really want to start something entirely new right now, either. Again, I'm in the mood for composing, and starting a story from scratch means spending a while in the invention frame of mind. Not right now.

So instead, I'm going to work on an existing project. Here they are:

• Floorcraft - I italicize it because as I conceive it now, it is a novel. This is a series of eight connected short stories which tell the story of one year in the lives of eight members of a collegiate ballroom dance team. (I'm writing from life, here.) The problem is that my writing has changed a lot from the first story through the midpoint of the sixth, where I stopped. I want to go back and revise before continuing on. So strike Floorcraft for now.
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - I've started about three versions of this story, and never finished one. It's not because I don't like the idea, but because I'm not quite sure who this Ferian Fetlock fellow is, and what his motivations are. This story would take a bit of dipping into Ferian's head before I could start. I'll call it a maybe.
• "Motley" - Technically this is an expansion of a completed story, not a new story altogether. The part I've written is simply three scenes in the life of this character, but there's a lot more to tell.

Out of these, I think I'll go with Ferian. Once I understand him, I've got two more stories with the character planned, so that might be my best bet. All right, as of tomorrow, I'm writing "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse."