Chaturday Post #24
poems and swords and sorcery
This is a late Chaturday Post because I’ve been writing hard today. In fact, I’m brain-tired, and it’s past my bedtime. So hopefully everything in this post will make sense. 😅
Today I debuted the first chapter of the revised Chains of a Dark Goddess on Substack. This novel came out in 2016, right before I started writing the Outworld Ranger series. I love the story, but honestly, I didn’t do a good job writing it. So the book is getting a fresh coat of paint. No new story beats or new chapters—just better writing. The first chapters needed the most work. It’s a good side project because it gives me something to work on when I need my back brain to be working on Outworld Ranger story beats.
All of the Chains chapters will be available for you to read on Substack. But if you want to receive them in your inbox, you’ll need to go to the Noble Dark section of the newsletter and sign up for that. (If you subscribed to the Typing Cat Dispatch within the last few days, then you were automatically subscribed to the Noble Dark section.) I didn’t subscribe everyone to that section automatically because I know a lot of poeple came here primarily for sci-fi. I figure the option to branch out should be up to you.
I also posted a poem to Substack: Facing Point Lobos. This is in the poetry section. As above, if you want the to recieve the occasional poem by me in your inbox, you will have to go to Poetry and subscribe to that section for email updates. Fun fact: My minor in Creative Writing focused on poetry, not fiction, because Thomas Rabbitt was the head of our department. He was an amazing poet and instructor. He also told me once as we went over my poetry collection: “You know you’re a fiction writer, right?” I did, but I learned a ton about the art of writing in general from him. Poems will be occasional, and mostly revisions of my older works. I rarely write new poems.
Outworld Ranger Update
This was a tough week on Protocol SLK-001. I spent several days stymied by a major chapter. I made several attempts to write it, but all of those failed. Then came the procrastination, like it does. For me there are three writing factors that can lead to chapter failure:
I don’t know what to write next. Easiest to solve. Just write the next sentence and see where that takes me.
I know what to write next, and it’s cool but also challenging to write. For example, starship battles with several things happening and Silky coming up with ridiculous plans.
I’m trying to write something, and it’s boring me.
Yeah, that third one’s no good. And that’s where I was this week. The problem is that sometimes the boring isn’t immediately obvious. Maybe a chapter starts off cool but then becomes tedious. And I’m a firm believer that if I’m bored by something then readers will be too. Once I figured out was the problem this morning, it immediately became obvious what I should do about it. So I’ll be picking up speed again.
Reading
The Shining and the Shadowdark tabletop roleplaying game manual.
Watching
We finished Seasons 3 and 4 of The Boys and moved on to Cross on Amazon Prime. Aldis Hodge is a favorite actor of mine.
Listening
Metal by Unleash the Archers. The three latest albums. I spent most of today with the song Ghosts in the Mist on repeat.
Let's Connect
Any of you on Duolingo? If so, feel free to add me as a friend! My profile name is TypingCat. I'm always up for new language learning buddies.
Want to control which posts end up in your inbox? Go to your account settings.