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2015-2016, and Blood And Water
10 years ago
Commission Status: WAY too busy
Current Writing Focus: Furry Visual Novel (Void Dreaming)
Current Writing Focus: Furry Visual Novel (Void Dreaming)
So. Uh, hi. Fae here!
First, let’s address the elephant in the room. Fae’s Christmas Music-Themed Special 2015 never finished this year. I’m honestly, awfully, terribly sorry about that. I’ll get into more about why that’s the case in a moment, but to help people understand why 2015 was such a dry year for me, I have to get into what happened in it.
First off, I lived in five separate places over the course of the year. I moved once in March, once in August, once in October and once again in December. That sort of moving is in and of itself not conducive to getting any writing done. While it didn’t stop me entirely, what work I did was not furry in nature. It was, in fact, for my first self-published novel.
Not advertising it here since I want to keep my furry and non-furry writing separate, but enterprising individuals would be able to find it if they wanted. Please don’t share it through furry channels if it’s all the same to you, but anyone who privately wants to know what was worked on is free to message me as well and find out what the novel is and how they might obtain it.
I also lost both my last surviving grandparent in March, and then my uncle (both on my father’s side) in September. So in between some very hostile living environments for me, I also lost family. My father of course has been more than a little shaken by all of this; seeing the solid, tough man I’ve become familiar with over my life start to break down has been more than a little disconcerting. He has, of course, required support through all of this, which has further taken my time. This all says nothing of how the day job has continued to kick my arse and keep me on the bare minimum I need to survive, or how that will not stack up when new expenses hit in just a few months.
The move in December was the big kicker, and that’s what screwed up my FCMTS plans. I was only able to complete three of the five stories before the end of the month, and I’ve been busy with other writing and plotting since then. I do intend to finish them, but at this moment it feels like something that will have to wait until I have free time at the end of this year. FCMTS 2016 may well be a seven-story series; the longest in the tradition’s history. Don’t worry; I don’t plan to make that a habit. I’d rather keep up with a consistent, five-a-year routine, thank you very much.
Now, let’s address the BIGGER elephant in the title: Blood And Water.
Two years ago, I started an experimental furry series called Blood And Water. I had no plot, no world, no structure, no planning and no characters (aside from three names: Deacon, Bain, Oswell). When I started, it was a fun little experiment while I was working on a different novel that will be seeing revision work soon. I didn’t think I’d get so caught up in it as I did.
Without sounding like an egotistical twat (which, let’s face it, I feel like I’ve already crossed that line today!), it wasn’t just me that was so caught up in it. Plenty of people left comments on the series to share their support of (or revulsion with) the characters. There were discussions on what was going to come next. There were wonderings about things that I’d mentioned in previous pieces as new story elements came to light. It became more popular than I would have dared anticipate, as people were enamoured with Deacon’s story.
So here’s the other reason why FCMTS 2015 didn’t finish: I’ve started working on the sequel.
Blood And Water is going to have a sequel not in the form of another series here, but in the form of a full-length novel. It’ll be written as a novel first instead of a series, and released as a novel. Yep. I’m going to self-publish that, too!
At the moment, I have some thoughts on what I want to be able to do with Blood And Water, both the original series and the novel. I’d honestly like to know what fans of the series would like to see me do and what they’d like to see out of a novel that follows on from the events of the series itself.
At present, my plan is to have five separate releases to better cater to different people with different tastes and wants for the series. Interested? Here’s what I’m currently thinking:
Original Series: the series itself, fully edited and cleaned up and compiled into its own book, available both as a paperback print-on-demand and an e-book. This would also include a small novella, packaged with the book itself, unique to these releases.
The Novel: also available in paperback print-on-demand and e-book format. This one would also have its own unique small novella, exclusive to those releases.
The Compilation: An e-book only release that contains the original, edited and cleaned up series, the new novel and also each and every one of the stories that have so far been published to SoFurry, FurAffinity and Weasyl, also edited and cleaned up. I’d do it for paperback too, but it would just be too large to be cost-effective.
This way, I feel like I can do the most amount of work to please the most amount of people. People who don’t want the full series don’t have to get it; they can simply buy the novel by itself. Those that want to carry around the fullest collection of Blood And Water they can would only need to buy the compilation e-book, and get the most bang for their collective buck. Those that want the paperback or e-book stand-alone versions of the original series or the novel (complete with some great in-fandom art on the cover, I sincerely hope!) are able to do that too, and because they’re not getting as much as the compilation I figure they can get something special.
Please let me know what you think of all of this. I’ve got the story for the novel all nutted out, and I’ve started work on first drafts now. Blood And Water is going to happen before the end of this year if I have my way, and I’d like to know how everyone who enjoyed the series would like me to approach it. Leave a comment, or message me privately if you’d like. Your feedback is so, so important to me. It’s that feedback that helped me get through Blood And Water in the first place.
Thanks everyone, and may 2016 be nowhere near as shitty as 2015 was!
- Faora
First, let’s address the elephant in the room. Fae’s Christmas Music-Themed Special 2015 never finished this year. I’m honestly, awfully, terribly sorry about that. I’ll get into more about why that’s the case in a moment, but to help people understand why 2015 was such a dry year for me, I have to get into what happened in it.
First off, I lived in five separate places over the course of the year. I moved once in March, once in August, once in October and once again in December. That sort of moving is in and of itself not conducive to getting any writing done. While it didn’t stop me entirely, what work I did was not furry in nature. It was, in fact, for my first self-published novel.
Not advertising it here since I want to keep my furry and non-furry writing separate, but enterprising individuals would be able to find it if they wanted. Please don’t share it through furry channels if it’s all the same to you, but anyone who privately wants to know what was worked on is free to message me as well and find out what the novel is and how they might obtain it.
I also lost both my last surviving grandparent in March, and then my uncle (both on my father’s side) in September. So in between some very hostile living environments for me, I also lost family. My father of course has been more than a little shaken by all of this; seeing the solid, tough man I’ve become familiar with over my life start to break down has been more than a little disconcerting. He has, of course, required support through all of this, which has further taken my time. This all says nothing of how the day job has continued to kick my arse and keep me on the bare minimum I need to survive, or how that will not stack up when new expenses hit in just a few months.
The move in December was the big kicker, and that’s what screwed up my FCMTS plans. I was only able to complete three of the five stories before the end of the month, and I’ve been busy with other writing and plotting since then. I do intend to finish them, but at this moment it feels like something that will have to wait until I have free time at the end of this year. FCMTS 2016 may well be a seven-story series; the longest in the tradition’s history. Don’t worry; I don’t plan to make that a habit. I’d rather keep up with a consistent, five-a-year routine, thank you very much.
Now, let’s address the BIGGER elephant in the title: Blood And Water.
Two years ago, I started an experimental furry series called Blood And Water. I had no plot, no world, no structure, no planning and no characters (aside from three names: Deacon, Bain, Oswell). When I started, it was a fun little experiment while I was working on a different novel that will be seeing revision work soon. I didn’t think I’d get so caught up in it as I did.
Without sounding like an egotistical twat (which, let’s face it, I feel like I’ve already crossed that line today!), it wasn’t just me that was so caught up in it. Plenty of people left comments on the series to share their support of (or revulsion with) the characters. There were discussions on what was going to come next. There were wonderings about things that I’d mentioned in previous pieces as new story elements came to light. It became more popular than I would have dared anticipate, as people were enamoured with Deacon’s story.
So here’s the other reason why FCMTS 2015 didn’t finish: I’ve started working on the sequel.
Blood And Water is going to have a sequel not in the form of another series here, but in the form of a full-length novel. It’ll be written as a novel first instead of a series, and released as a novel. Yep. I’m going to self-publish that, too!
At the moment, I have some thoughts on what I want to be able to do with Blood And Water, both the original series and the novel. I’d honestly like to know what fans of the series would like to see me do and what they’d like to see out of a novel that follows on from the events of the series itself.
At present, my plan is to have five separate releases to better cater to different people with different tastes and wants for the series. Interested? Here’s what I’m currently thinking:
Original Series: the series itself, fully edited and cleaned up and compiled into its own book, available both as a paperback print-on-demand and an e-book. This would also include a small novella, packaged with the book itself, unique to these releases.
The Novel: also available in paperback print-on-demand and e-book format. This one would also have its own unique small novella, exclusive to those releases.
The Compilation: An e-book only release that contains the original, edited and cleaned up series, the new novel and also each and every one of the stories that have so far been published to SoFurry, FurAffinity and Weasyl, also edited and cleaned up. I’d do it for paperback too, but it would just be too large to be cost-effective.
This way, I feel like I can do the most amount of work to please the most amount of people. People who don’t want the full series don’t have to get it; they can simply buy the novel by itself. Those that want to carry around the fullest collection of Blood And Water they can would only need to buy the compilation e-book, and get the most bang for their collective buck. Those that want the paperback or e-book stand-alone versions of the original series or the novel (complete with some great in-fandom art on the cover, I sincerely hope!) are able to do that too, and because they’re not getting as much as the compilation I figure they can get something special.
Please let me know what you think of all of this. I’ve got the story for the novel all nutted out, and I’ve started work on first drafts now. Blood And Water is going to happen before the end of this year if I have my way, and I’d like to know how everyone who enjoyed the series would like me to approach it. Leave a comment, or message me privately if you’d like. Your feedback is so, so important to me. It’s that feedback that helped me get through Blood And Water in the first place.
Thanks everyone, and may 2016 be nowhere near as shitty as 2015 was!
- Faora
