It’s hard to know where to start this missive, since a lot’s been afoot.
I think we’ll start with the amusing/tragic aspect. You may remember I set out on this quest to pursue novellas/short stories as a way of unsticking my difficulties with Quicker than Blood? So after starting the second novella/short story (I am not sure how it’s going to turn out), I realized that what I really wanted to do was make it align with aspects of Quicker than Blood – after all, the title I’d come up with, ‘Learned in Blood’, felt very thematic. And that’s a thing I’ve done before – see the way Pavlov’s House lines up with Dog Country.
So I decided that one of the major inciting incidents of the background plot in Quicker than Blood should be the focus of Learned in Blood, but from a very different perspective – maybe so different that the protagonist of Learned in Blood winds up having vital information that helps the protagonist of Quicker than Blood solve some mysteries?…
This genius move meant (and has meant) that I have 30+ A4 size pages of handwritten notes about all this trying to figure out and re-engineer huge chunks of Quicker than Blood to make sure that the inciting incident, which appears in Learned in Blood, has all the correct details and fiddly bits. A clue is found on a boat? Okay, now I need to check that the clue works in the outline for Quicker than Blood, that the boat makes sense, and that the ENTIRE MYSTERY tied to the clue is fully worked out from front to back.
It’s been good for the state of Quicker than Blood, but it also risks me returning to spinning my wheels on that book without really making progress, so I’m trying to ease off that, a little, and maybe figure out a different short to write, although much of my planned time has been getting eaten up by life events, too.
(The tl;dr on life events while retaining some privacy about it goes something like ‘waiting years for an appointment that goes badly is pretty rough, but maybe I’ll get some help I need, so maybe hopeful?’)
In short, there’s been progress, but it has been an uncontrolled and undirected progress that leaves me with little to show. Such is life in the arts, I suppose.
But seriously.
I am seeing some very cool possibilities for what Quicker than Blood might be. I just really hope I get to bring even 10% of those possibilities to fruition.
And, as ever, thank you for your support and your interest – fans and Patreon patrons alike are why I have the opportunity to try, and I am constantly thankful for you all.
