This year has been a challenge, writing-wise.
I did start the year writing a sequel to ‘Interplanetary Homesick Blues’, and even managed to get 30,000 words written, but my heart wasn’t really in it. The concept of the story was a little flat, a little too conventional, and I realised with a shock that I didn’t really care about the outcome. Plus, my work responsibilities cranked up a notch and that affected the available mental energy for my usual post-work writing sessions. Maybe I’ll pick it up again someday. Maybe we’ll finally get Cal and Droov back together to save the day and have that long overdue kiss. We’ll see.
I don’t see this as a failure though. My goal with ‘Interplanetary Homesick Blues’ was to prove to myself that I was capable of writing a full length novel. Which I did. Yay me. But I now if I am going to write again, I need to figure out what I really want to pour myself into. It takes years to write a book. I need it to be worth it.
The experience with all the rejection from agents made me realise that the one thing that was missing from my first novel was any sort of personal stake. Any good writer, with the same ingredients, could have written something similar to ‘Interplanetary Homesick Blues’. So what does a uniquely ‘Chris Dicken’ book look like? What can I write, which no-one else can? What excites me, and scares me, and might take a reader somewhere they haven’t been before?
And that’s the project for next year.