Mostly Dead

It always happens that I'll be in the midst of one project, and already I'm thinking about the next. At the moment, I'm supposed to be plotting my upcoming NaNo novel, I haven't even started it, and instead I'm thinking about revision.

It's been brought to my attention that my 2016 vampire NaNo novel, Cold Blooded, is not half bad. It's readable, even. So it might be prudent for me to try to revise that one, as opposed to The Long Road, which still needs most of a plot.

Now, I haven't reread Cold Blooded in a while. I'm not sure if I've read it since I finished the first draft. But I remember it being a lot of fun to write. I did a lot of research on vampires in various works of fiction, picking out the attributes that I wanted to use. Like, I didn't want them to sparkle. I didn't want them to be walking corpses. I didn't want them to turn into bats. But, I wanted them to be arithmomanic. I wanted them to have unnatural healing. I wanted them weakened by sunlight, but not dusted. Looking at my notes, it also says that they can be weakened by drowning, as a lack of oxygen puts them in a state of hibernation. I'm not even sure if that ever came up in the story, but it's good to know, I guess.

I've never been good at world building, making rules for my fictional world to follow. But this isn't that. This isn't a whole fantasy world. This is one fantasy species in an otherwise normal world. I've got my chart of vampire attributes, so I'm ready to go in that regard. Call it a stepping stone into world building.

The story was funny, but also dark, sometimes gross, sometimes tragic, and sometimes involved cracking open someone's ribcage while they watched. It was a pretty damn good story.

Obviously, it has its problems. It sort of waffles around at the end while I was trying to meet my word goal. It might cause bodily harm to its protagonist a bit too much (I seriously have a problem with that, guys, send help). It might end its villain(s) a little too easily.

But it has all kinds of things I struggle to do, like subplots! There's all this murder and mayhem going on, and the guy's, like, trying to start a band. And there's the ice cream shop, with its serial killer themed flavors, and no sprinkles, damn it. And there's a legume festival, with all that entails.

So this November, I'll probably be starting a new project, about a guy named Steve, who's been cursed by an angry god and repeatedly dies in myriad gruesome ways. But I might be a NaNo rebel and revise Cold Blooded. We'll see.

I'm off to reread this story, because I've gotten myself all excited about it. I'll see you Wednesday.