Hello again, my faithful followers! I may not have been blogging lately, but there's certainly been plenty of creating going on. As well as the two new fables you've recently heard about, I've restructured the beginning of the original fable so that it flows in a more linear fashion. I've learned so much about the art of storytelling since self-publishing The Elephant and the Dragon, and because I can easily update the ebook, I shall! The new update should go live by Christmas of this year, and I hope to be able to release the next fable shortly thereafter. 😄
In case you're wondering, I'm still working on the elven low fantasy novel, The Sanctuary. I first shared a little about this in the July 2021 blog, "Latest Writerly Exploits" (click here to read it). The Sanctuary follows Erin, a young woman who accidentally learns of her secret elf heritage from a stranger, and her subsequent turbulent journey to help reunite the planet's two sentient species.
BUT—the one that's been keeping my mind occupied this past week is a sci-fi story, tentatively titled: The Science of Stars.
It began as a short story written for a the Pikes Peak Writers' second anthology (releasing 2022). When the tale was not chosen for publication in the anthology, I decided to edit it further for submission elsewhere. In re-reading the story with a fresh eye, I found there were several places that required better clarification and more detail. As I reworded these passages, several ideas for story expansion began to bloom in my mind. 🤩
So my latest project is building on The Science of Stars short story, testing out the possibility of a novel length project. I'm creating deeper characters and a long backstory, as well as worldbuilding for a far-in-the-future setting: Mars. But, not Mars in its early settlement period, as so many Martian stories have already been written. No—it's set on Mars after its successful terraforming and the subsequent failure due to several catastrophic failures. It's a story of a Mars where humans live trapped underground, waiting for the day they can move back up to the surface. The Science of Stars will follow Tatiana, a young woman who longs for the day when she can look outside and see the night sky for the first time. ⭐
I don't have a complete picture for you yet, but that's how I write. I love to let the narrative carry me along as it goes, surprising me as much as my future readers. And (as you may know by now), I create inspirational pictures to encourage myself while writing! So, today's blog images are a teaser of a possible book cover and what the underground Martian colony's various department badges may look like.
What do you think? Would you be interesting in reading a story like this?
