I'm in the home stretch on The Early Fox and I've got a cover on order but...it isn't the adventure in a contemporary setting I started to write. Not now. The world has changed so much, and so fast, it's now nostalgia.
It would be safer to write science fiction.
The Tiki Stars feels closest to launch, I've got borrowed books, themed decorations ready to set up, and I am looking forward to third person for a change.
And a created world, meaning I can be selective in detail.
But the more I think about the "Blue" concept (and the more I want to write that -- damn you, Shiny New Idea Syndrome!) the more I realize that Tiki Stars is basically warm-up exercise for a full on Constructed World story.
And that, as comparatively simple as that world might be, I still need to do the exercise.
Worldbuilding.
Oh, and speaking of a changing world. One of the concepts that's been building for "Blue" just got echoed by a writer over a the Scalziblog. A commercial empire (he's talking Venice, I was using United Fruit) finds themselves in the midst of all-up naval warfare (err...) and has to change the way they do things.
Anyhow, I've been thinking of all kinds of interesting ethnographic stuff for the multitude of species in the "Blue" universe. There will be a bit of biological determinism and a bit of Jared Diamond-ism but the key idea is that all of these models and theories can be useful but are not complete. And when humans have found themselves in a multi-system environment filled with existing species with their already-existing relationships, those small bits of getting it wrong can get exciting, fast.
The Drenoi, for instance, who lack the illusion of continuity of consciousness and thus recognize different aspects of their lives as different individuals with their own names, financial affairs, and criminal status, and who find attempts at "joinder" insulting and basically in really bad taste (plus of course lacking in all common sense). Or the "Corsairs." They also only have an exonym, because to them life is sorted into "us" and "prey." Their language can't functionally handle "intelligent species that isn't us" as the basic definition of "intelligent species" is "us."
A thing I realized is that for them and for others the social forms and their understanding of the ways of other species will evolve, sometimes radically. For the latter, they are capable of quite complex relationships with various "prey," some of which come close enough to be mistaken for "trade" or "diplomacy."
And our humans are also doing this; coming in with a sort of corporate structure, plus independent operators (prospectors, explorers, traders, who all have more direct experience at the start of the game) plus remnants of the Terran Empire professional navy (this group of colonies got economically abandoned as ferrying goods across the long-jump wormhole wasn't paying off for either, and their connection to that distant empire has gotten thinner and thinner). And everyone is re-evaluating and adapting, sometimes in wild leaps into the unknown.
So you can see why this is exciting. Among other things, problems for the protagonists practically write themselves. Because the way I want this to play out is a lot of rough-and-tumble, practically space opera, with crash-landings and hostile locals and pirate raids and crazy schemes and all the rest of it.
Just got to finish with Penny. Have her talking with the cops now (the scene I dreamed up at the last minute, that has been a real bear to get to work properly). Then the "bar at the end of the universe" (part of the conversation goes positively Stapletonian, starting with Ray Cats and working its way well past the final variable of the Drake Equation), the thrice-dug grave, a confrontation at Lon's trailer and the chase across the Jornada to end up at the Trinity monument.
And as I'm sitting at 65K, it looks like Egtved Girl isn't going to make the cut. The final chase is going to be simpler than I thought.
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