WIP Progress Report: December 2015

Well, my last progress report was all the way back in January, so I figured it would be a good idea to post something here.

Posted Works

None since the last time.

WIP Corner

The biggest WIP to discuss here is obviously the first entry in our new INDEFATIGABLE series, entitled Toxicosis. Originally entitled The Depth of Sin, we had to go back to the drawing board on this story a couple of times as a result of some elements just not working out for us (eg: directory of the story, characterizations, plot being too complicated).

As some of you are always aware, we had slated to put Ensign Icheb on Indefatigable as a science officer under everyone’s favorite Betazoid/Trill, Commander Govan Harli’s tutelage. We intended to introduce Icheb in a previous story that would’ve wrapped up our Task Force Vanguard trilogy with a novel-length coda (Ubi Bene Ibi Domo) to show what happened to C. J. Kircheis after she was pushed back into the Alpha Qudarant via the secret wormhole that the Rihannsu were using during the Vanguard mission. We still have that story to write, and a good chunk of it is sitting in word documents, for sure. But we got really excited about writing Toxicosis, that we jumped ahead a little bit in order to tell this story.

The good news is that Toxicosis is finished and we’re just sitting on the story for now. Why? I think it needs severe editing, and I’m not talking about a pure grammatical check; the story was written over the course of several months and I feel like the narrative is uneven in places, but I’m not sure how to approach it. I would love for a pair of fresh eyes to read it and give us some feedback.

So, what’s next? AJ and I are working on an original story we think has promise. I don’t want to give too much away, but when I have more news, I’ll post here again.

Prep Work

For this original story, we’re using an alternate Earth. There’s a lot of historical context, dating back to World War II, that changes the history and perspective of people living on the planet since 1943. I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting my history papers and re-watching some good documentaries on life in the 40s and 50s to help shape this new alternate world for our upcoming story. We’ve already done all the character sketching and some ancillary writing to support some concepts we’re going to try.

Productivity Killers

Work. Work is killing my productivity. I switched roles and this one is far more demanding on my time than before. Not with travel, but with meetings upon meetings upon meetings and then no time to work during business hours, so I have to sacrifice personal time to get some projects done. That is a huge killer of my writing productivity.