Every week we take a gander into the Confabulators’ worlds to see what they’re thinking. This week we’re asking what they’re working on because, well – we’re writers and we should be writing things. As usual, you get an interesting range of answers from the specific to the vague.
I start. I stop. I despair. I try again. I beat my fists upon the keyboard. I scream. I fling pages of notes across the room. I stare blankly at the pixilated words on my computer screen. Are my eyes watering from fatigue or anguish? Will I ever write again? Will these words strung together with my blood, sweat, and tears ever become a book? How can I call myself a writer? I despair.
I try again.
I am working on an idea tentatively titled The Dream Catcher. The owner of a hotel is plagued by a sort of psychic ability. When he sleeps, he picks up the dreams of those around him as if he is an antennae picking up radio waves, the dreams of those physically closer to him are stronger. Because of this, he works nights, choosing to sleep during the day when everyone else is awake. One night, after two days of lack of sleep due to the stress of his wife leaving him, he falls asleep at the desk. He picks up a horrific dream, but unlike most nightmares, this one gives it dreamer great pleasure. Our hero find himself in the middle of the sinister cravings of a sociopath, whom no one else can find.
My current work in progress has been in progress since about 1980. Or actually it was stalled for about 30 years until I pulled it out of the drawer, literally, and started back to work on it.
It’s a post-apoctalyptic young adult novel (please don’t ask me to say that aloud!) set in SE Kansas. All but a few people in North America have been killed by neutron bomb explosions, and a 16-year-old boy, who had his own problems before everything went down, now has to apply his farm-boy living techniques to be able to survive.
So far I’ve managed to come up with an ending to the story, after about 73K words and reviving two characters whom I’d killed off, and I’m about halfway through the first total-book revision, but I’m not sure that the current chapters leading up to the ending will survive.
I’m sorry. [Insert Name Here] has been unable to work on his novel. Lately he has been spending his spare time:
- A) Preparing for the upcoming Mayan apocalypse
- B) Fearing a man-made “Big Bang” created at the Large Hadron Collider
- C) Trying to broker a Middle East peace accord
- D) Debating with UFOROSWELL47 the location of Area 51
- E) Spending too much time coming up with this list
Imagine Elmore Leonard, Christopher Moore, and the Coen brothers met at some seedy, roadside motel and got their ménage on. I’d like to think my book is what would come out of that most holy of unions. It’s got rednecks, racists (is that redundant?), and buried treasure. There’s a floating strip club named The Love Butt, a sheriff’s deputy who thinks he’s the second coming of John Wayne, and a couple of friends who are in desperate need of change of venue. A little found money may just be what the doctor ordered, provided they can survive the week.
I just finished a story that should be published sooner rather than later (announcement soon, I hope) and I’m working on a sequel to Evolver: Apex Predator that’s nearly done. I’m also deep in revisions on my novel, The Cold Distance, which is a science fiction about about two thieves who are unwittingly hired to steal elements of a machine that, when assembled, will destroy the universe as we know it. She’s an orphaned girl filled with a sense of betrayal and he’s a quantum-computer Artificial Intelligence and they’re chased by galactic law enforcers who have no sense of humor whatsoever.
I’m trying to recover from the post-NaNo blues and get my current manuscript completed. It’s at around 66%, which is a common stalling point for me. After getting the zero draft complete, I’ll vet it with my regular readers and then start the hacking and chopping phase.
I am still working on my National Novel Writing Month novel from 2011. It is a young adult hard sci-fi story. I think it’s time that more hard sci-fi for young adults came out. Hard sci-fi sparked my imagination when I was in middle and high school, and I think it appeals to a lot of adolescents who aren’t interested in reading novels about dating.
Right now I’m working on revisions for the second book of my Zoey series. Book three is already coming together in my head at the same time, since the parts need to fit together. I should have book two submitted by mid-March, so I’ll start writing book three in a few weeks.
It’s not a “work in progress” so much as a “story mired in severe procrastination,” but I’m currently working (procrastinating) on editing a young adult novel. The story follows a girl as she grows up in an Academy for the gifted. However, she can’t seem to figure out why she is supposed to be there and rather than trying to fit in and make friends, she strives to be the girl nobody knows exists. Fate has other plans in store for her, though, and while she doesn’t have to save the world, she has to decide if saving the life of the crown prince is worth giving up her anonymity.
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