Moving Day!

After much thought, I've decided to activate my long-dormant domain, http://www.heatherdudley.com. I love blogger, but it's not as feature-rich as I could like, and it's time for me to move on up to a grown- CMS. One day I will, but until then, Wordpress will do.

I plan on moving my subscriber list as well, but until then, you can visit manually. I hope to see you there, and know that hopefully this will not be an interruption. It's not like there's that many of you around! Either way, thanks for reading, and I'll see you over there!

Progress and ruminations

I've been working steadily on Hacker Dragon. I'm up to 21,667 words as of this very moment. I feel like that's a truly respectable total, since this time last week, I only had about 13,000 or so. I'm finding it's hard to get back into Drakan's head; I'm not sure what the magic mix was when I first wrote her. She's there, I can *feel* her, but I haven't quite reconnected with her.

I'm pleased with the work. She's mellowed, some. I think it's me that's mellowed, truthfully. I think I was in a very turbulent time in my life then. It's no less turbulent now, but I'm coping better. I'm not in the grips of post-partum depression, though its lingering effects still hang in my mind like the unwanted cobwebs in my bedroom. I know they're there, I know I need to get the broom, but I can't quite bring myself to do it.

Such is the nature of depression, I suppose.

But I'm enjoying what I'm writing. It's not Great Literature or anything, and I'm not sure I will pursue traditional publication with this piece; it's leaning towards romance, although it may pull away into a respectable sci-fi piece by the time I'm done. If it does stay romantic, I may try Ellora's Cave, or maybe just plain self-publishing via ebook.

I have NOT given up traditional publishing for my other works; I just don't know if the world is ready for this one. :) I won't know until I'm finished, of course. I've got roughly a month before the CreateSpace deadline, and I think I'd like to print this one with it.

I don't know. This is a very experimental book, for me. It's outside of my comfort zone, it's different, and I don't think it has mainstream appeal, but I think it may very well find a very loyal audience in a certain niche.

Who knows, though, after I get the original version out, it may end up very different after it goes through editing.

I love writing. I love the mystery of it, the discovery. I'm a very visceral writer, I take a dream and I give it reality, and I enjoy learning where it leads. I've never been much of a planner.

And that, my friends, is my scattered brain dump for the day.

Picking up an old WIP

Mom cancelled on us, so I've got the whole day to myself. I've made two positive steps towards being actually productive.

1) Last night, I read over the piece I'm planning to continue. It doesn't suck, and although I think I need to back up and take the story in a different direction than it did from the last plot twist, I think I've got a good base, and some damn good characters to work with.
2) Just now, I opened Scrivener. I will follow this action by stopping to tweet about the action I just took, then make a blog post about it.
Hey, it's forward motion, right?

I think after that, I will move all of the text from the word doc I've got this saved on into Scrivener.

I've been trying to think of a new title, though. This piece is about a genetically enhanced computer geek who takes over a corporate network (think Shadowrun, but without most of the magical stuff.) just before another hostile organization takes over. This is literal hostility, including guns. She lets them take over, makes an arrangement with the leader of that organization, and is now playing cat-and-mouse with him. Romance ensues.

Quick bit of worldbuilding: Post apocalyptic thing, now humanity has a dual animal nature. Some are naturally more strong than others. Corporations rule the world (nah, I wasn't influenced by anything cyberpunk. I PROMISE.) Most people are regular animals of various sorts, some are myths. MC is a dragon, leader of organization is tiger (smilodon fatalis, to be exact.) It comes off less cheesy than it sounds, I promise.

Anyway, It's a sci-fantasy thing, heavier on the sci than the fantasy.

Current working title REALLY sucks: Hacker Dragon. Not the kind of thing I'd be proud to show off in public. So I have to figure out something different. I'd like this to be my CreateSpace submission, so I need a non-shitty title.

Now to figure one OUT. Any suggestions?

But I think I'll start working on my scrivener file first, so that I'm making more progress towards actually writing, rather than procrastinating with minutiae.