I’m probably going to take another little hiatus while I work on the next book of The Steal of Time. For reference, that will be Grifter’s Heart and at latest draft I had five parts of it ready to post. That was when Usenet declined and I stopped writing, lo these many years ago.

I have made a plan now for completing nineteen parts of the story, and then tackling the rest of the books, but I’ll take a bit of a break to write some and get ramped back up to speed. In the meantime, of course, I will also be working on The Last Days of Earth, and Tales of the Always Night. And, you know, work-working at the same time.

I read a couple more chapters of Tales of the Always Night to Wump and Toop last night. They’re still into it[1], but I definitely need to cut down on the waffling they do. It’s borderline painful to read out loud, and I can feel myself wanting to get on with it, so this has actually been a really valuable learning experience already. I can cut out a bunch of it[2], and add in some more interesting and fun stuff. The things that make Wump laugh while I’m reading them – those are the winning fragments.

[1] Wump was immediately indignant that Hartigan got to be the Captain and would get all the credit even though it was Fen’s mission, but she was happy to see the alicorn get mentioned again because she was worried I’d forgotten it just because it had been four thousand years since the prologue.

[2] I’m also falling into the “prequel” trap of trying to fit too much Six Species / Final Fall of Man stuff in there, too many cute little references to characters and events, so it’s starting to look like a Star Wars movie full of origin explanations. Stop doing that, Hatboy. Okay, maybe do it once or twice, but then stop. This story is its own thing, the important part is getting the six main characters established, then getting them out into uncharted space and into all-new adventures. The first part of the book, where Fen is assembling the team, can have a certain amount of references and stuff, to establish the different species. But that’s all we need.

Busy at work. Big milestone that I had to focus on, but it’s looking good. This morning it was looking insurmountable so that’s progress.

Felt a semi-related warning rumble of depression again this morning. Going to test whether a timely combing and washing of my hair has as much positive impact as I theorise it will. It sounds dumb, but they do say that self-care (and, I must acknowledge, Mrs.-Hatboy-care) is important for your mental state.

I always seem to sink, predictably, after my weekly write night when it feels like it’s the longest possible time before another write night. But this is an illusion, because a) I really can go out and write at other times, and b) I don’t usually sink until a few days afterward, when things should be starting to look up again. No, it’s the hair being a mess that is the main connective point[3], or at least it seems to be. So I’ll test that.

[3] In b4 “get a haircut”. Sure, and when that makes me worse I’ll get a lobotomy.

I also went for a walk for the first time in ages yesterday. Felt pretty good. I just don’t seem to have time to do it anymore. I could also get up early and write in the mornings, since write nights are very susceptible to me running out of spoons before the end of the evening, but I just can’t handle early mornings as well as I used to. I need my old fart sleep.

Enh, to be continued. Told you this was random.