This blog is about writing. In fact, my life is about writing. So I’m going to talk more about it, in more detail. Sounds good. But first it’s about time to take a quick stock check to see what I’ve done so far, what I’m doing now, and what’s up next.

Current projects
Projects underway and being typed, if I manage to actually sit in front of my computer for long enough. Note to self: sit down and write.

Seven Wonders (superhero novel, 36,569/100,000 words (36.5%) - the main project is my second novel, Seven Wonders. It’s proving to be fairly difficult to concentrate on, but looking back at the writing process on my first novel, Dark Heart, I actually think I’m at about the same stage. It’s the one that all writers will be intimately familar with, where everything you write is the most godawful trash ever created, and that every single keystroke is the most appalling agony. You sit at the computer and sweat blood trying to work out what to say, and then when you’re done for the day you’ve convinced yourself that you really need to give this up and go work in a fast food chain. So just business as usual then.

Crescent Rising (collaborative fiction project, world building/plotting stage) - I haven’t talked about this yet, and it will be the subject of its own blog post this week. But to give you the brief, Crescent Rising is a collaborative universe set in and around Fell Hold City, split across different timezones. There’s six of us working on it, and it’s still in the early stages, but I’m co-coordinator for two of the four main time zones. This means developing a world bible for the zones, as well as plotting stories within the zone.

Completed projects
Written. Done. Dusted. Published or awaiting the second draft.

Dark Heart (steampunk novel, 118,750 words) - my magnus opus! Well, possibly not, but my first completed novel anyway. If nothing else it showed I could write at length and to style (and believe me, first-person pseudo-Victoriana from about six different PoVs was no walk in the park!). The final length needs to be 100,000 words, so it is currently sitting in draw maturing, and once I’m done with the first draft of Seven Wonders I’ll start the edit on it. Getting it to length should be pretty straightforward, I hope. Once the draft is polished, I’ll be sending it around a group of private readers for their critiques, and then once ship-shape and Bristol fashion it’ll be time to query agents!

The Devil in Chains (novella, 24,160 words) - Originally written for the eZine Pantechnicon, and now available as an eBook for the iPod touch/iPhone (and also a PDF), this steampunk tale started as a short story and grew, and grew, and grew. It’s a prequel to Dark Heart, although entirely self-contained, and features a Turk-head meerschaum pipe (among other things).

The Unpopular Opinion of Reverend Tobias Thackery (short story, 7143 words) - Again, something I haven’t mentioned much of. This is a weird tale written specifically for a magazine. I submitted it, and now I have to wait at least 12 weeks for a yes or no. More on this if and when I get a response!

Future projects
I’m a writer, I’m full of ideas. Which is lucky I guess – writer’s block has never affected me, and I have more ideas, notes, plots, concepts, etc, that I can record. So for future projects, I don’t mean a list of everything I can think of to write in the future, I mean projects that I have properly mapped out to at least some degree, ones that I can (and intend to) start writing immediately, when the current project I’m on finishes.

The Eleventh Hour (steampunk novel, part of the Dark Heart series) - This was actually plotted as something else, long ago, but I since realised it would fit the world of Clarke and Bellamy rather well. The plot needs some further adjustment to complete the transition, but other than that this is novel #3 for me.

The Dead Sands (YA novel, standalone) – I am actually in danger of forgetting what this is about. Each time I bring it to mind I find a bit of the plot has vanished, so I should really start taking some serious notes on it ASAP. It’s a modern day YA adventure, with a target wordcount of 80k. Think Children of the Stones meets Quatermass and the Pit. With added sand.

Captain Carson and the Case of the Robot Zombie (Crescent Rising Golden Age novella) - novella or long short story, I’m not sure. What I do know is that anything I write comes out way longer than expected! This is part of the collaborative city project I’ve mentioned above, and will be the first story set in Fell Hold’s ‘Golden Age’ period, which roughly corresponds to late Victorian England. It is – obviously – a magical steampunk fantasy, featuring a retired polar explorer, a steam-powered superhero, and a ship full of… well, I don’t want to give it away. More on this on Thursday. Work on this will actually start fairly soon, before Seven Wonders is finished, so time management will become crucial I suspect or neither will get finished.

And that’s it for now. I appear to have written 186,622 words in total so far. My target for this year was an ambitious 486,400 words, which I doubt I will hit. However, you never know! The aim for 2010 is 1 million words, or 2,739 words each and every single day.

Well, it’s good to have a dream, isn’t it!