November Newsletter: Words, written and read

Been a while!

Hello, friends!

Yes, I’ve been posting other things, but it’s been a while since we had a proper newsletter, hasn’t it? My apologies. There’ve been a few reasons for that.

1. In August, my attention was entirely devoted to my impending Starcruiser journey, and in September—as no doubt you, lovely Readers, noticed—I was mostly writing about the trip. So I decided a newsletter on top of all of that would’ve been redundant.

2. Some changes in my personal life made composing a newsletter more of a challenge.

3. I hadn’t been writing. Like. Not at all. Since July. And honestly, barely even then. Really since April. Well, not writing fiction, anyway. Clearly I’ve been writing blog posts, and I’ve been writing for work, but nothing fiction and for me.

But that last part, at least, is shifting a bit, so a newsletter we shall have!

News

It’s been NaNoWriMo month, as my Worldbuilding Wednesday posts have made impossible to ignore. (Sorry not sorry). And I’ve been writing. I’ve been writing more than I have since April, and I’ve been writing better than I have since I was editing The Bloodstained Shade. Some days, at least.

I am, as of the time I’m drafting this newsletter, not expecting to “win” — meaning, to hit the 50k mark. But as I’ve noted elsewhere, that’s fine. I should pass 30k, which will mean averaging 1k a day, and that’s a decent mark. It’s also a pace that ought to be sustainable, which is far more important than whether or not I can sprint out 50k.

I did learn something through this experiment: Book Four of the Aven Cycle needs to start rather later in their timeline than I initially thought. Well, not a lot later, but by several months. However, there are two very big events in between the end of The Bloodstained Shade and that start of Book Four that I feel my readers would be disappointed if I withheld. I don’t have enough other plot points to connect those big events to the main plot of Book Four, is the trouble. (Honestly, I’m not sure I have enough plot points yet in general, but that’s a problem for future!Cass to sort out).

What I might have, though, is a novelette for the first and a short story for the second.

And the glory of having total control of this series myself now is: I can do whatever I want. So I can release a novelette and a short story in advance of Book Four, and no one can stop me. Maybe only a dozen people will buy and read them, but no one can stop me. And it costs me nothing but a bit of time.

No, I have no idea when any of those might be coming along, but it felt good just to have a realization shake loose inside my own head. It’s been a while since it felt like any parts of the tumbler were falling into place.

I also may have had a bit of a brainwave about the Shakespearean-theatre-inspired project that I’ve been trying to get off the ground for ages now. I haven’t had much time to spin it about yet, but I have a suspicion I’ve been trying to start the story in the wrong place. Sort of a theme of this month’s writing revelations, really.

In this case, though, it’s that I’m starting in the wrong place for the world. I was beginning it in a time period that was far too settled, where the playhouses and their people were too well-established. The same goes for some elements of the magic and religion. Fighting to maintain a status quo isn’t as narratively exciting as trying to establish something in the first place. If I peel that back some, though, and situate the plot I wanted to write in a slightly earlier time period, then I’ve got some deliciously different tensions to work with.

So that might be my December focus: taking another whack at that manuscript from a different angle than I’ve approached it before.

Upcoming Events

Nothing currently scheduled for the immediate future, but it’s not too early to sign up for RavenCon in Richmond, April 26-28!

What I’ve Been Reading

Since we haven’t had an update on this since July, there’s quite a bit to catch up on here! As always, these are affiliate links; if you use them to purchase from Bookshop.org, I’ll get a small commission, which gets funnelled right into more book-buying. And I highly encourage book-buying, especially during the holidays! Books make the best gifts.

• The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna

• Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors, Guy Gavriel Kay

• The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence, Alyssa Palombo

• Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes, Rob Wilkins

• Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree

• Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans, Isi Hendrix

• Shield Maiden, Sharon Emmerichs

• An Unkindness of Magicians and A Sleight of Shadows, Kat Howard

• The Jade Setter of Janloon, Fonda Lee

• Wayward, Chuck Wendig

• Watership Down: The Graphic Novel, Richard Adams, adapted and illustrated by James Sturm and Joe Sutphin

• The Armor of Light, Ken Follett

• Queen of None, Natania Barron

I also did more re-reading in recent months than I’ve done in the past few years. I really enjoyed the new audiobooks of the Witches of Lancre series within Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, narrated by Indira Varma.

Wrapping It Up

I hope to be back on a more regular newsletter schedule in the coming months. With luck, I’ll have some good news to report about actually getting a new manuscript underway.

As we charge fully into the holiday season, I hope that all in your world is as merry and bright as may be!