Where Do We Go from Here?
Mar. 13th, 2016 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepenny[first published on Storytellers Unplugged, February 7, 2009; dug out of the Wayback Machine by an awesome reader]
I’m in kind of a lull right now. The page-proofs of Corambis have gone back to New York, so I’m officially done, not only with that book, but with the four-volume series (Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and now Corambis) that I’ve been working on, in one way or another, since approximately 1993. That’s a big project and a big chunk of my life (even if I didn’t know when I started that it was going to be four books and fifteen years long), and so I suppose it’s really not surprising that I find myself metaphorically standing here, squinting at the signposts, frowning at the map, wondering where I go next.
I don’t know that I’m done forever with Felix and Mildmay and the world of Meduse, but I know that I’m definitely done for now. I need a new direction. I need new worlds to conquer. And at the same time, my mule team say they needs a goddamn break. They need a vacation, for crying out loud.
The mule team, of course, is the subconscious and the right brain and the place where the creativity wells up, the thing we don’t have any good words for. That part of my brain is tired. It’s not drained–I’m still getting new ideas–but, honestly, the idea isn’t the hard part. Turning the idea into a story, and making that story complete, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s the hard part. And the mule team don’t want to do it. They want to lie around in the shade and drink iced tea.
And for now, I’m willing to let them. We could all use a breather.
Maybe by the time they’re ready to pull again, I’ll have figured out which way is up on the map
I’m in kind of a lull right now. The page-proofs of Corambis have gone back to New York, so I’m officially done, not only with that book, but with the four-volume series (Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and now Corambis) that I’ve been working on, in one way or another, since approximately 1993. That’s a big project and a big chunk of my life (even if I didn’t know when I started that it was going to be four books and fifteen years long), and so I suppose it’s really not surprising that I find myself metaphorically standing here, squinting at the signposts, frowning at the map, wondering where I go next.
I don’t know that I’m done forever with Felix and Mildmay and the world of Meduse, but I know that I’m definitely done for now. I need a new direction. I need new worlds to conquer. And at the same time, my mule team say they needs a goddamn break. They need a vacation, for crying out loud.
The mule team, of course, is the subconscious and the right brain and the place where the creativity wells up, the thing we don’t have any good words for. That part of my brain is tired. It’s not drained–I’m still getting new ideas–but, honestly, the idea isn’t the hard part. Turning the idea into a story, and making that story complete, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s the hard part. And the mule team don’t want to do it. They want to lie around in the shade and drink iced tea.
And for now, I’m willing to let them. We could all use a breather.
Maybe by the time they’re ready to pull again, I’ll have figured out which way is up on the map
