Hello, dreamers. Another week, another completed short story, another new one in progress. However, as I mentioned in this week’s “Writer’s Desk”, I’m already planning to back-burner my short fiction work in the coming weeks (though I probably won’t stop entirely). That’s because novel-writing season is approaching, and I have a lot of work to do.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be ramping up my work on Aquarius 1. During the past month I allowed myself to focus more and more on short fiction, and while that was a welcome change of pace, I feel the pull of my next novel project. That said, here’s the latest on my current work-in-progress:

Aquarius 1

I find myself at a crossroads. While research can and will continue, the time has come to begin preparing for actual writing on this project.

On the research end, this week I’m focusing my work on what will be the dominant form of life on Thamiyn: fish. I’m beginning with placoderms: an extinct order of fish that bore bony plates across parts of their bodies. I need to learn more about why these highly-successful early fishes went extinct, and what that could mean for the biosphere of my fictional exomoon. From there, I’ll finally begin building the biosphere. Ideally this will take the form of general notes on the setting, along with several distinct organisms that will factor heavily into the story.

In addition, as early as this week I’ll begin reading myself back into the story proper. Once I’ve completed my current short fiction piece (which may happen as early as tonight), I’ll be going back to the master file of Aquarius 1. I still have a lot of work to do, primarily with regards to swapping out a character with a new one. And though I’ve been pleasantly surprised with what I’ve read so far, I know I’ll find more I want to change further on.

As early as this weekend, I may begin jotting down dialogue or other new passages, followed by entire scenes. Over the course of that, I may be referring back to the aborted first draft of this story.

When writing, I seldom throw anything away outright. While working on a novel, this is primarily to preserve pieces I may want to eventually reintegrate; typically passages that were edited out due to word count. In this case, however, I’ll likely refer back to my previous work because, frankly, it wasn’t bad. Just…soulless.

The plot of this novel has been completely planned out for some time now. I know exactly where the story is supposed to go at every major juncture, but when I first tried to write it I found myself just going through the motions. The good news is that means I still have a lot of important plot pieces written out. I just need to decide whether any of it is worth reintegrating, or if it need to be rewritten from scratch.

The process of deciding what stays and what goes will likely occupy much of my time over the coming month. But I may still make my return to writing by late August. With my plans to resume querying and submitting short stories right around then, September looks to be my busiest month of the year so far. I can’t wait. – MK