September Update – All of the Things

Howdy, folks! It’s uh… it’s been a while.

I did kind of expect to get lost in pre-production for a few things last year at this time, but I didn’t expect to fall off the face of the planet quite as thoroughly as I did. So you may be wondering…

What Happened?

So, September of last year we accidentally adopted a cat. His name is Cannoli, he’s (now) a little sweetheart with very sharp toes and a big voice, but when my brother brought him home a year ago it was because nobody expected him to last the night and he wanted to give the little bean a chance. That little cat said, “stomach surgery WHOMST?!” and proceeded to become… my problem. 😀 He’s a good problem to have. A lot of the last year has been taken up caring for the wee lad and trying to introduce him to the other – far more senior – felids of the house. With… mixed results, so far. It’s an ongoing project.

In November, I wrote my half of Iron (title WIP) – the next book in the Barbarians series. It will be a series, don’t worry, it’s just that Life Happened in the meantime. I think my dad was writing – or trying to write – the Wizard’s Cat at the same time? I don’t really remember.

In December, I finally got to the conclusion of the Dawnbreakers’ Saga, took about a month off to recover from that, and then started on my new Skyrim series – Grifters. It has a slightly different tone, and is a lot more simple to produce, this time. Which turned out to be a very good thing because…

Just after I started Grifters, Life Happened. Those of you who are more familiar with my dad’s works/blogs than I am already know that he was diagnosed with cancer. Since then, I’ve been focusing on the YouTube uploads while also doing my best to step up and do some of the things that dad usually does/did around the house. (Right at the moment his biggest priority is recovering – a priority I fully support.) I haven’t really had the brain space available to sit down and write something (that wasn’t scripts for Grifters, anyway) for a while, but I’ve been noodling away on things anyway. Trying to find stories to write.

It’s a weird thing, life happening. A lot has changed in a year and I’m not sure what kinds of stories I want to write, anymore. I know where I want to write them, but not what the stories are or should be. I’ve basically put Omnia and its stories in the, “It was a good first try,” box, but I’m ready to move on to another world. More on that below.

What Am I Working On?

Grifters – Obviously. I need to update my Music page and a bunch of this website in general to make it easier to find the new things, but that’s a project all on its own. I’m actually quite proud of the music I made for Grifters – it’s definitely some of my best yet, and I think Atlug’s character theme might appeal to Solar Clipper folks even if the rest of her doesn’t. 😀 Yes, she does sing sea shanties. She’s fun. They’re all fun.

Uthir – Uthir has become… far more than Urien, who may or may not end up getting renamed at some point. It’s become a full-on worldbuilding project, which has kept me more or less sane between all of the things. Uthir is now a planet in a solar system with a couple hundred million years of evolutionary history, a few thousand of cultural history, seven language groups sprouting out of the ether, and a bone-colored moon. It’s all still kind of nebulous at the moment, but there is magic, there are dragons, and I’m hoping I find good stories to tell in the course of building the bare bones of this world. Uthir is becoming my love letter to geology and paleontology, which is something I’ve never really tried to explore in a fantasy setting before in spite of it being something that Really Interests Me, and has for as long as I’ve been alive, as far as I can tell. The roots of the world go deep, and they are fascinating.

Iron – I have half a draft sitting around waiting to be looked at again. At some point, I’ll come back and see how I left Sukhetai and company. It may not be until next year at the rate I’m going. Maybe until November. We’ll see.

And with that… I return to my anvil. I have a lot of words to build so that I can name things and people properly. Keep on keeping on, folks.