Back in the Game

After last night's blog post, I did something I haven't done in a long time: I wrote some fiction. Specifically, I wrote a flash story entitled The Last Leprechaun, about Fearghus from Balor Reborn. It felt good, getting to dive back in the world of Modern Irish Myth. It's the first time a new story has gone on the new website since it went live last Saturday.

I was excited to get it online (after some trouble with my server), and even more excited when the first comment for the website came in, with loads of questions about issues raised in the story. Someone was definitely curious about the state of things from that single story alone, set in 1993, before the events of Balor Reborn. Which is all the more exciting for me, because there's some actual interest in what happens in the book from someone who hasn't read it.

Before the comment even appeared, though, I had drawn up my list of Things To Do, to last until Tuesday. It's simple: blog and poem each day, and pieces of books every day (from a chapter of a novella to a chapter to a short ebook) to the point that each of the books will be complete by Tuesday's end.

It's not a case of "write this book in X amount of days". I just gave myself the task of writing individual chapters on particular days. It's much more easily managed, it's much less daunting, and I think I might actually be able to stick to it.

Which brings the title to mind: I'm back in the game of writing seriously.

I can have these two books completed next week, and a flash story ready to go for Friday next week. And this is just the beginning. I have some writing to catch up on, so I figure if I get into a rhythm of writing a fair bit each day (not even too much for my capabilities, and with no weekday job) I'll be able to get up to scratch on where I should be at this point in my plan.

I figure it helps that I've been writing regularly every day. Despite the weather, and despite the temptation to sit back and relax now that exams are over, I've been producing a blog post and at least one poem every day this month. Simply adding to how much I have to write each day isn't actually a drain on my time; let's be fair, I don't really do much with my time right now.

So, I might have a few days when I just write like crazy. And then play Skyrim and blow people up. But if I do that for long enough, I'll have a fair few books in the barrel ready to be launched. (Does that metaphor work? Let's go with it anyway.) Given the fact that I could, potentially, write a novella in a week (heck, I've done it on several occasions in the past!) I don't think I'm going to task myself too much on this. Balor Reborn was a three-day writing process. As was Stepping Forward. With The Hounds of Hell in the pipeline (or...you know...barrel...) I think it's fair to say I'll have the series being released on schedule.

Who knows, people might actually really enjoy it.

I know the flash stories help, anyway. While they're all standalone stories, some of them are connected to each other, and others to the main series. And they're fun as heck to write.

I might end up posting a couple every month (but several this month to create a bit of an archive for visitors to ModernIrishMyth.com) until the series is complete (and perhaps even beyond then!). The way I see it, that's over twice as many stories on the site as there are now, and a fairly large collection of free stories. I just have to see if I have that many myths to use, first, without digging into the ones I plan on using for the series.

Sure, we'll see. I'm back to writing, it's not quite terrifying, and I might actually get into it to the point of writing a lot every day until I'm all booked out (which, considering the amount of books I have in mind to write, will take a long, long time). The game is writing, ladies and gentlemen. Are you in?