Pulling The Plug on Lights and Shadows (For now)

It’s never an easy decision to pull the plug on a long-term project, even if it’s only for a brief time.

Lights and Shadows started off as a filler project to kill some time while I was winding down from getting Parallax off the ground. Unfortunately, now it’s a year later and it seems that both my interest in it and my progress has slowed to a crawl. That tells me that I need to evaluate how much of an investment I should continue to contribute to it. No, I’m not abandoning it altogether, merely putting it on hold in favor of Parallax: Genesis.

Of course, putting Lights and Shadows on the back burner means that my goal of getting a new book out this year will go unfulfilled. Goals are funny things because they don’t always get accomplished when you intend them. I still believe that Lights and Shadows is a good story that deserves to be put out there, just not at this point in time.

That being said, it’s time to devote my energies and resources to revisiting John Pratt and The Parallax Universe.

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Perceptions of Recent Events

I’ve been under the weather of late so I’ve not been very active in either writing or being online. It’s nothing personal, people catch bugs and need time to regain their strength and enthusiasm and no one (I believe) is more lethargic than me when I’m not feeling well. Anyway, enough excuses for my diminished productivity. I’ll clap erasers after School, Teach.

Lights and Shadows is moving forward at a pace that makes glaciers appear speedy by comparison but progress is being made. I won’t get into specific word counts because I don’t feel that they are that important. I’m planning on publishing it sometime in December.

Parallax: Genesis’s development is still ongoing but realistically speaking, I probably won’t get started with the actual writing portion until at least the First Quarter 2017. Multiple projects, go figure…

Anyway, this is me peeking out of my cave. Have a good one. 🙂

Adding Backstory to Your Backstory

One of the things that I enjoy the most about writing fiction is the world building aspect. Every story should have some history behind it no matter how much time passes within it.

So, I’m planning out the plot for Parallax: Genesis and considering the first scene where my intrepid heroes are stuck in Hyperspace and trying desperately to escape before their life support systems fail (Time works a little different in Hyperspace) and I wanted to share a story that the main character tells about a ship lost during the early days of Interstellar Travel. I’ve gone through several iterations of how that would play out when it occurred to me to have my people actually find the lost ship and cannibalize some of its parts to get them home and in the process solve the original mystery (Pratt has a knack for doing heroic things and ultimately bring unwanted attention upon himself…hehe).

My point here is that when you add historical elements that are particular to your story universe, you add depth and flavor that can potentially spur the reader forward. After all, when you are painting on a canvass that is as expansive as the Universe, you have plenty of room to fill in the corners.

Another Day, Another Few Hundred Words

I don’t stick to a daily word count when it comes to Writing. Some days I’m on fire and can easily knock out a chapter or two while other days I’m lucky to get a paragraph. That’s simply how it works with me.

I write because I enjoy it, which basically means that if I don’t feel like doing it, there’s a good chance that it won’t get done that day. Thankfully, I manage to get caught up in the long run but to engage in a set writing schedule is tantamount to throwing my hands up in the air and shouting “Please shoot me now.”

I do keep track of my progress though because it’s good to know where you are at and how far you still have to go. I’ve been making slow and steady progress between Lights and Shadows and Parallax: Genesis while working out some logistical stuff for getting L&S ready to go by the end of December and P:G by the end of March 2017. Unfortunately, the blog has been semi-neglected in the shuffle and while I enjoy updating you all on what’s happening over here, it’s a little lower on the food chain.

Before I forget, a small update on the paid advertising venture I was doing with Amazon Marketing Services. I didn’t run the campaigns for the full month as I originally planned but I did notice some significant results and am planning to restart Parallax’s campaign some time in November. I’m not thrilled with the expenditures involved but I’ve been told that’s what you have to do when you self-publish so I accept it.

Parallax: Genesis (The Planning Begins)

I’ve been getting a number of messages from people asking me when I’m going to start work on Parallax’s Sequels and though I am loathe to work on multiple projects at once, I’ve decided to dust off the files and get to it.

A little background on where I am at this moment:

Parallax: Genesis takes place immediately after the last battlefield scene in Parallax. Pratt and his crew find themselves trapped in Hyperspace after the ship’s Hyperspace Regulator module overloads and burns out. This poses a dilemma because while the ship’s fusion reactors provide a large amount of power, it is not infinite and when the fuel runs out (exacerbated by unique Time-Space conditions inherent to Hyperspace) everything including their Life Support Systems will shut down. In other words, if they don’t fix the problem, they will eventually drop into Normal Space feet first. Therefore, the first story event in P:G will be a race against time with plenty of opportunities for character development and drama. While I could probably put together a fairly good tale using this by itself, I plan for Pratt and Co to solve their problem and make their way to Earth, where the remainder of the plot will unfold.

This particular sequel is an expansion to the original outline I wrote for Parallax but decided to break into three parts because I felt that it was too extensive for one standalone book.

A Random Literary Thought

Every so often while I’m writing, a stray thought pops into my head and I have to stop and ponder its significance.  Most stray thoughts drift out whence they came and some stick around long enough to get written down. I guess that’s how it works.

Today’s random thought involves retooling Lights and Shadows so that I can fold it into The Parallax Universe as the lead book in a new series that will pick up where The Parallax Trilogy ends.  Of course, that means changing a bunch of stuff (timeline, some characters, etc) to line it all up with the events I’m currently leading up to.  That also means a delay of sorts since Parallax: Genesis and Darkfall haven’t been written yet.  Lights and Shadows was originally intended to be a spinoff set within the same story universe but about seven years into the story future.

Yes, I know that since it’s my story, I can do whatever I want with it.  Yes, I know that retooling L&S has the potential to put it on hold in favor of the Parallax Sequels.  Yes, I know that delays may push the release date way past the end of September and despite the hordes of voracious villagers assembling with pitchforks and torches, I would rather delay a release in favor of a better end result.

My inner voice tells me to consider very carefully before committing to an action like this because internal consistency is very important.