I’m afraid I won’t be sharing Sharp,
I started it on the first, as I almost always do. The writing was in a heightened literary style, which made it extremely slow going, and after a few paragraphs I realized that it just wasn’t going to work. I re-read them, and they came off as juvenile, a kid trying on their parents’ clothes rather than something worth reading.
(Side note: I should have known better. My attempted Banksian novel several years back had the same problem, although I found that tone a lot easier to imitate than the one I was attempting with Sharp.
On the second I rewrote the few paragraphs I had written in my own style, and it seemed a whole lot smoother. I finished off the first chapter, happy to have found a bit of a groove.
That died on the third. I’m not sure what it is; maybe Sharp
On the fourth, I decided to start all over with a different story, one that had been tickling the back of my brain for a while. And I wrote over 3000 words with almost no effort, and another two thousand and change yesterday.
Ex Urbes is not good; it’s full of infodumps and sidelines that go nowhere. But it’s easy to write. I won’t be sharing it either–because it’s terrible–but I’m also no longer worried about NaNo. Disappointed, sure, because I still really like the core idea behind Sharp and was looking forward to sharing it… but c’est la vie.
Anyhow, sorry to those of you who were wanting to read along. Next year, perhaps.
One thought on “Dull the blade, busy the city”