A List of Obsessions
I've just finished a read-through and outline of Monsters 2, which hopefully means this draft is a little better. I am NOT ready to read through it again -- at this point it would be like trying to perform an autopsy on a putrefying corpse.
I also made some art for the book, because apparently I like waxing the cat. This is Vaira in the void, wearing a crown of monster teeth.
I'm going to let Monsters 2 rest for a while and then do what Raine Wilson just did with her current novel WiP which is to read it as an ebook and make notes. I have never actually done this before but I can see it being very useful as it forces you to look at the book in a new way.
I was feeling a little meh about what to do next -- for reasons I'm not feeling the current monthly prompt, so instead I started Paul Jessup's class on Pushing Your Imagination. I haven't got far , but I'm enjoying it, and Paul is just such a lovely human to listen to talk about writing.
One of the things he talked about is writing a list of obsessions, which long-time readers may remember me doing before. It's been ages, so I decided to start a new one from scratch (although, lbh, there are some recurring vibes hahaha)
The current list reads: (and there will be few if any surprises here)
Shapeshifting/slipping skins
Wild things, feral monsters
Gothic as in 80s goths
Seaside towns in off-season
Queerity
Beautiful tragic heroes (male and female and inbetween)
Fluidity
The edge of body horror
Sexuality in a lush, rampant way
Creeping dread
Mythology woven through the everyday
Gods of small things
Houses that are bigger on the inside
Layers of time
Drugs and drugs and more drugs
Rituals
Closed-off communities, especially ones that are religious/ritualistic
Gardens of statues
Grey dogs appearing meaningfully
Little creatures as familiars - especially winged cats
Comedy of manners
Dreaming becoming real
The fracturing of what is real and what is not - seeping into each other
Fallen angels as feral creatures
Sea gods
Bones of long-dead monsters
Town names that are both familiar and not, like you’ve side-stepped into a world adjacent to this one
Antiques and strange finds in charity shops
Woods in the misting rain
Lost turns leading you to different times
Carnivorous plants
Remnants of fairy tales that exist alongside the now
So, yeah. It ended up with me starting a new short story, so we'll see how that goes :D
Hopefully this time I can keep it to a length I can actually sell, rather than a +- 14 000 word novelette that I can now do nothing with. side-eyes story.