It’s Saturday morning as I write this and I’m watching English soccer on broadcast TV–pretty much the only appointment TV I bother with any more–and thinking about the writing I did on Twenty-One Palaces yesterday.
I’m pretty sure that I described the final predator I’ll ever have to create for the Twenty Palaces novels.
At this point in the series, it had become a bit of a fraught process. What could I do that I hadn’t done before? I’d done various animal-shapes. I’d done metal. I’d done crystal. I’d done pseudo-angels. I’d done wet sludge. I’d done lightning. I’d done rocks. The drapes were basically amorphous blobs. The cousins were brain worms (more relevant now than when I first wrote them 15+ years ago).
And so on. The self-inflicted pressure to make each new creature as different as possible from what came before is not just professional pride or creative vanity. Repeating elements in creature design implies relationships between those creatures. Maybe people will assume one is the larval form of the other. Maybe that they evolved from a common ancestor.
I didn’t want that. I wanted them unique and inexplicable.
But it’s done. I wish I could say that this final design is the absolute best of them, but I don’t think I’ll live long enough to top the sapphire dog.
That doesn’t imply I’m almost done writing this draft, though. I’m only now turning toward the climax, and it’s been a real struggle to figure out. Usually, by this point, I know how the story ends and can sprint through it. Not the case right now, unfortunately. The Twenty Palaces books have always been difficult for me, the guy who struggles with literally everything he writes, but this one has been the hardest.
Still: progress.
I’m also thinking that I should change the title of the book. The story is not going in the same direction as it was when I picked that title so many years ago. We’ll see.
In other news, I went to the big Hands Off protest held here in Seattle (and around the country). The event was scheduled for three hours but I lasted almost two. Sadly, the pain in my legs–especially in the ankle I broke at 17 and never got treatment for–didn’t ease until eight days later. As much as I would like to be one of those people who march and chant, that’s not going to work out.
It’s been a while since my last post so I haven’t had a chance to recommend new things. My wife and I both enjoyed the heck out of The Residence, which is a rare entry in the recent surge of whodunnits that actually cares about the mystery and the characters both.
We also finally got around to a few Korean shows that have been ripening in the Netflix queue. Man to Man was a mix of romcom and action spy (on a Korean TV budget). I enjoyed it quite a lot, but I was surprised my wife did, too. She’s usually not a fan of romcoms.
We also watched My Name, which is an engrossing gangster drama with a lot of action scenes. My wife was happy to see the woman from Gyeongseong Creature again, but thought the fights were a little too bloody. We loved it otherwise, though.
I’ll stop here so I can get a little more writing done. In the future, I’ll try to keep these updates coming monthly.
Take care. Speak out. Thank you for supporting my Patreon.