Thought I would just do a quick general post on the projects I’m currently working on.
The Novel – The next draft has gone off to my agent for her feedback. I’ve timed it just right so that I can go on holiday in a few days and I won’t spend the entire time pondering, staring off into the distance and making notes. I’m going to chill out for a week, switch off, unplug and just unwind. It will also give me time to ponder (more quietly in the background) what I’ve written, or defrag it and reorder it in my head, to fall back on my old computing terms. Hopefully when I return I can then listen to the next set of comments and be a more detached and hopefully make the next draft even better.
The Game – I’ve been quiet on this for a while, but we’re starting to move forward again. This is a work for hire job I did where I wrote the bulk of the main story. I have to be very vague on details, but I can say it’s currently in testing, so once testing is far enough along, they will plant a flag in the sand and announce a release date. The game is innovative in many ways and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, which is one of the goals we set out with. I’m very excited to see what happens with this, but it is also another string to my bow as writing this was unlike anything I’d done before and if I get a chance I’d like to try it again in the future.
Flux – This is a comic mini series I’ve co-written with Pete Rogers and with art by Maysam Barza. We’ve now sent the submission package off into the wide world to a couple of comic book publishers. Now comes the awful waiting, the nail biting, the gnashing of teeth as we wait for an answer. In the meantime Maysam is cracking on with the next chunk of art.
ComicSeries2 – I’d not co-written something before and when I approached Pete about writing what would eventually become Flux, it was with a lot of trepidation. Writing is normally a solitary affair, except for TV where you have writers rooms (which I’ve not tried, but would love to), so I had no idea if it was a good idea and if it would work. I chose Pete very carefully too as I thought we were well suited and I thought we would get along, but again there was no guarantee. Thankfully my leap of faith paid off, it worked really well and we immediately starting talking about doing something else. There’s a working title for this but I’m keeping it mum as it might become the actual title. With this project we’re doing something completely different to Flux, totally different genre and approach and right now it’s in the early stages. But I’m feeling the same level of excitement and am looking forward to seeing what we can come up with together.
The River – Adam, Ryan and I put Empyre on the shelf, as despite what we thought was a cracking and interesting idea, with amazing art (that’s me saying that not Adam, as he doesn’t think he’s very good!), the publishers we submitted to weren’t interested. We were told there’s too much like it out there already. A big shame but we did learn a lot from it, so we just have to chalk it up to experience and move on. What Adam and I are cooking up now with The River (working title) is pretty off the wall, but I’m also keeping it pretty focused which is something I seem good at doing. It’s very different to anything I’ve developed before and we came up with the core of this idea together. It’s based on lots of different things we’re both interested in, so we keep brainstorming lots of little touches, which is making the world feel more realistic and lived in. When I get back from my holiday I’m going to press on with this with the goal of having another submission ready before the end of the year. Sounds easy, six months away and all, but experience has taught me lots of stuff gets in the way, so Christmas is reasonable and any earlier is brilliant.
Dapper Chimp web comic – Digital comics are going through a revolution, there is so much innovation in that space at the moment it’s amazing. I’m not a full convert, but I really like some of what is going on, such as what Mark Waid and others are doing at Thrillbent.com and what they’ve done with MonkeyBrain comics. They’ve produced short, punchy comics that are only available digitally, and at some point may be available as physical collections. Several different publishers have expressed an interest in different titles and they are printing the trades. Dapper Chimp was set up by Pete Rogers and the first digital comic will soon be available on ComiXology. I’ve recently developed a superhero satire in the mould of Mystery Men, as a mini series, and the idea is to publish it exclusively via Dapper Chimp and then if it does well, produce a physical printed edition at some point. The story is ready, now all I need is an artist. So if you’re a budding artist, looking for something funny but also with heart, get in touch.
The second novel – I’d actually started working on this before I submitted my first. I’ve got the spine of the story sorted, the characters are ready, most of the main beats are there and I’ve written the first couple of chapters. This has been put on hold of late but I’ve been poking around at it again recently, looking forward to it and also backwards to book 1 to make sure they fit together. They’re not connected like you’d find in a trilogy, as each book in the series is a standalone story, but there is connecting tissue between them as they’re set in the same world and linear in time. I guess I’ll inch this along as and when I can in the next few months and just see how I do.
All of that sounds like a lot, but everything moves at different speeds, so it’s rare for many things to overlap. Occasionally I do start to flap a bit, and what follows are several late nights until the pressure is off a bit, but overall I am able to juggle different things quite well. It also follows the whole ethos of not putting all my eggs into one basket.
Stephen Aryan 