Last night I read about half of Part Two in my WIP that has been on hold for the past five months. Tonight I will read the remaining chapters. Trying to get back into a novel that you have not thought much about in that amount of time, is pretty hard. But trying to get back into a SF/F novel that you had to drop for a while, is doubly hard.
You have to read a good chunk of what you have already read, then you have to re-read all of your notes and then you have to get your head back into the game enough to continue writing. It’s non-trivial, to say the least.
I actually enjoyed the parts that I did read and that’s a good sign. I could have read it and decided the whole mess was a waste of time and chucked it into the bin bucket.
Tyrmia is set in the same universe that I created in my first novel, Starstrikers and in subsequent short stories. It takes place roughly 500 years after Starstrikers. Even though the story is set in a SF universe, it takes place on a world cut off from the rest of the galaxy and languishing at a technological level the equivalent to our Edwardian times. Kinda Steam Punk-ish, except they have internal combustion engines.
The reason I stopped writing months ago had to do with my failure to completely realize this level of technology. I had to think about it for a while and make sure I knew what they could and could not do. I also had to get the politics right. Which meant more thinking and more planning. I still don’t have it all straight in my head or in my notes, but in a week or two, I should be there. And that is when I will be able to start writing again.
Another thing I realized was that I had written about 32,000 words on it and as far as I could tell, the story was about two thirds finished. Not good. So I will be adressing the plot a bit, perhaps adding more subplots and allowing for a more detailed glimpse of the world.
I don’t need to hit 100,000 words, but I do need to get into the 80-90,000 word relm.