So what's everyone working on NOW?

The Chronicles of Fel

Chapter 1: Figure Eights

Zen’Tehr, many years ago

Baran sat on the wooden rocker in his family’s den, reading silently by candlelight. Outside the window to his left, the sun had finally descended below the horizon, and the evening began to assert itself fully. Children played in the warm summer’s night, chasing fireflies and giggling wildly. Baran smiled to himself and tucked a lock of his long blond hair just behind the point of his right ear. He had just returned his attention to reading when the front door of the cottage opened. Baran’s mother stood in the doorframe looking at him, and he made no futile attempt to hide his book.
His mother strode towards him, concern overcoming anger as she neared.
“Baran,” she whispered, “I thought you might be reading this while we were out. Be glad that I decided to come home a bit early, and make sure you weren’t doing this. Had your father been with me, he may well have thrown you out.” She reached over to take the book, but Baran pulled it to his chest, his eyes flashing with bitterness.
“I haven’t done anything to warrant that,” he replied. “Why is it I can’t pursue knowledge from all corners of this world? Is there not much more to life but what’s within the confines of our village?”
“Other Elven things, of course. But why must you insist on delving into the religious tomes of the Humans?”
“Well, at least Humes are still Sovereigns, right? That should at least curry some favor with Father.” Baran tried, but could not hide the sarcasm in his tone.
“That sort of attitude,” his mother said coldly, “will garner no good will from either of us. We deal with the Sovereigns because that is the way of things, but for most Elves, Humes and Dwarves are not much better than the other races. You’d do well to remember that, Baran.”
They eyed each other silently for what seemed like an hour, until finally his mother’s shoulders slumped. Rolling her eyes a bit, she sighed heavily and sat down on the ottoman in front of the rocker.
“Believe it or not, Baran, I’m proud of your thirst for knowledge. I just wish we could impress upon you how dangerous some of it is. That book you’ve been reading, all it contains are lies about some all-knowing deity that supposedly watches over every person on this world. Let me ask you, Baran: Suppose someone like you were to become a teacher, and in a naïve attempt to expand your students minds, exposed them to those fairy tales? And suppose some of them believed it? It would break them away from the glory of Mother Felia, and then they’d have no place in our society, or any Sovereign society. They’d hardly be better than a Halfling or Drow. Would you really want that to happen?”

There we go. Anyway, it's just the beginning. Not even a page. But I'm trying to establish that the Elves speak in a much more proper manner than other races. However, I worry that I may be making them speak too properly, so that it sounds like something from a literary treatise. Thoughts?

Don't be discouraged. That is actually the reason why the Workshop was started - to give people a chance to showcase their work and have others comment on it. Often people will start a thread on their own around a particular work.

Outcomes have been uneven, though. In the early days, some posters just couldn't manage to keep their little petty vendettas out of the 'shop, and I think it discouraged some folks from posting their work.

Then, too, I'm in the position of being really an honorary moderator. There's always a co-mod around to hold my hand and do most of the nitty-gritty stuff.

Sometimes, though, I think folks come in here with the expectation that I will read and comment on everything they post, which of course I can't - for reasons of time, as well as reasons of proprietorship of concept.

This is why, for example, TrekBBS has a separate Trek Lit forum and fan fic forum, because they really don't want fans posting "Hey, I've got this neat idea for a Star Trek novel" where the already-published authors might stumble on it.

That said, I'm generally reluctant to judge anyone's work for a lot of reasons, not least of which because I'm not well versed across all genres, and I might not see what the author is going for. For example, I read very little fantasy, and someone may have written something that fulfills all the tropes and in-jokes of the genre and I might just not see them.

This is a long way of saying, John, please don't be inhibited here. If you see something you like - or don't like - feel free to holla back. That's what we're here for. And you've added an interesting energy to the place.

Oh, bah. I'm not the inhibited type. Honest. And my ego is perfectly secure. No worries on my account. Thanks for the kind words, though!

(Although I was serious about buying/starting a publisher...)

John

JohnAdcox,

Interesting read. I'm not into fantasy but this was compelling. You have left me listening to the far cries of Keith and the haunting sounds of music and the question of Betty's otherworldly (would I say adventure? I'm thinking not.)

I write character novels and all of mine are very earth bound... I liked the motion that you relayed in the dance. I've always enjoyed whimsy, but this is so far beyond. I'm a novice outside of her box. Is this even fantasy? She asks all the while wishing that she had the vantage point of the voices that saw so clearly and were so perceptive.

I felt bad for the young man as he stepped off of the cliff without a clue.

Audrey

Wow, thanks! I appreciate the kind words. You made my day.

Yes, it is fantasy. I wrote the prologue because without it, most of the story is a mystery/romance, with no REAL (or at least overt) fantastic elements introduced until the mid point.

Most of the story takes place years later, when a contemporary Renassiance Festival occupies that same meadow. Keith Winkler, the crying boy, is now a wheel-chair bound mobster. As for poor Betty, she is... a mystery. ;-)

Thanks again for reading and commenting! I am inspired to continue.

Here are two excerpts from the first chapter of one of my seven or eight manuscripts lying around begging unsuccessfully to be worked on:

Cutting and pasting kills the paragraph structure. Sorry.

I follow Miss Snark, the Literary Agent's blog and she is forever warning about 'aliens' showing up mid-stride. Your readers will be anxiously awaiting the resurfacing of the fantasy I'm guessing. Keep on keeping on!

Audrey

Marso,

Focus, focus, focus! lol If you don't write them, then how you ever gonna sell them? I was able to track your first excerpt with ease. The second one took way more effort. It probably flows fine for a SF reader, which I'm really not, but I do dabble in SF if it's a good read... Maybe the second excerpt is a little heavy with info and not fully developing the characters? Just my two cents. I saw a lot of Arizona references... I take it Mars is hot? smiling broadly. Have a good day.

Audrey

That's because the first excerpt was the first couple paragraphs of the first chapter. The second was pulled straight out of the middle of the first. It was basically a character introduction (Rozhkov's) that goes further than what I posted here. It was also quite a bit more technical.

I C Kool

I realized that I have been writing fanfiction for over four years as of last Saturday.

http://www.fanfiction.net/~annayolei

As for some current work...I'm revising a fic I published back in '04, but I'm on a public computer right now. I'll post it later tonight.

Woo hoo! Finally finished revising the book, of which I posted the prologue in this thread.

I'm writing the Ten Commandments. It's in the editing process now. I'm down to 543,772. So.....maybe by tomorrow if I don't get sidetracked.

I'm working on a surprise.

At the moment, just stuff like this:

http://www.wordforge.net/showthread.php?t=38074

Although I plan to expand into longer stories and poems.

-J.

Been kicking around concepts for my novel again recently, but just outlining it so far.

Not sure if the concepts are original enough yet, but the format I think is something that hasn't been done before.

My other creative outlet is creating and simulating spaceships for a board game I play - including Trek, Wars, and Babylon 5. Did an apocrophyl Dune fleet based on Herbert's works, simmed Star Wars prequel ships so you can duke it out with a Venator or Trade Federation Battleship, did the Wraith and Earth for Stargate, and am now working on Farscape in general, and the Hynerians in particular.

I made a video spoof online:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uR6LPUj9xLc

Well, I just started a ST story that picks up right at the end of The Search for Spock. It's basically going to assume that ST IV and V never happened, and the events of ST VI are going to be severely, severely altered. I'm using John Ford's model of the Klingons, with General Chang as the leader of a line with ambitions towards the Emperor's throne.

The action picks up with a Klingon scouting mission to the Mutara sector, where Chang's underlings are trying to determine 1) WTF is going on there, and 2) what happened to Kruge, who I've made a member of Chang's line. That scouting mission is as far as I've gotten with it so far. These Klingons are all playing the Khomerex Zha, or perpetual game, for the glory of themselves, their families, and ultimately the Empire. The stakes are high.

Then I'll pick up with our heroes on Vulcan, in the immediate aftermath of delivering Spock. Since the events of ST IV aren't goint to happen, we'll see the aftermath of the crew's actions, then back to Chang (General Malik zantai-Chang) for a little more plotting.

Then we're going to skip forward several years and pick up with my new take on the events of TUC. You'll recognize some of the characters and the skeleton of the original storyline, but that'll be about it. Not sure how long the whole thing is going to be yet. I'll post excerpts here and there, once I find a way to host or post them without destroying all my grammar, formatting, and punctuation. My goal is to keep the spirit of the original while presenting an alternate story that is coherent, makes more sense on the grand scale of the Federation and Empire, doesn't cling to the Soviet/Chernobyl cliche so closely, ignores the time travel elements and silliness of TVH, and cuts out some of the dreck that dragged down the canon version.

Does anyone know any good, free tools out there for turning Works files into PDF documents?

Big thing I'm working on is an iternary of seven places in Texas I'm going to visit on a four-week driving trip in 2007. My editor is on board but I have to nail down the details, including how they're going to pay me (by the word, or a per diem, plus expenses).

Going to capture stories around Texas ranging from the weird to the lurid to the comical, all told in a series in an "on the road" style narrative.

In the short term, a couple of business profiles and a weird murder story we had in a suburb of Dallas a month ago.

Writing a lot of sketches and kicking around the idea for a play in my head. Yeah, it doesn't do any good in my head. But I'm also not sure if there's an actual story there.

deleted.