Moonlake’s Writing Updates (5)

Firstly, I’m still working on my story Thread and will be doing so for a while now. I’m now up to draft 3 on Thread part 2 and just starting on it. There’s also now going to be a part 3 which basic plot I just ironed out this morning with the help of my collaborator on the Labor of an Empress, a short story published in issue 1 of the Excursions from the Citadel, an anthology series composed of my work and that of 2 other authors (I’m saying this for the benefit of my new follower and those who are just passing by this blog). We two are now going to collaborate on part 3, the grande finale to Thread.

Secondly, I will be exiting the Excursions as an author after issue 3 but will stay as proof-reader and general commenter for the contributing authors. I will be taking a short break from short stories to do some of the writing challenges commitments I had set myself in relation to Citadel retro quests but after that I will move onto writing novellas on the main and my own solo venture. The reason I’m doing this is that I feel that as a writer, I have a preference for writing a longer length of work with more complexity than a conventional short story should have.

Another development is that I will be doing a replication of a Chinese online novel for the purpose of challenging myself to writing a different type of protagonist that I had been writing. It will be mainly for my own development process as a writer and I won’t be publishing it. I got this idea mainly because I’m an economics researcher and in research, replication of previous studies is often a first step in the research process. Also, while I don’t think short story writing is really for me, the epub has been a valuable opportunity for me to learn about myself as a writer and spot my own strengths and weaknesses. One of my weaknesses have been characterisation and so far all of the stories that I have written or attempted to write have had weak protagonists. Therefore, I’ve decided to pick a novel with a strong protagonist so that I can be more versatile as a writer. I picked a Chinese online novel that I had been reading recently which contained a strong female protagonist that I personally like.

That’s all for now, till next time.