This morning I started writing the first chapter of “Buk Tri”–book three of The Tales of the Seventh Empire.
Of course, I skipped the prologue–which is going to be epic–because this morning, ShianMai was speaking to me, and as ShianMai is the viewpoint character for Chapter 1, that is where I began. It’s a little unusual for me–typically, though not always, I write in order. Granted, that order frequently changes, particularly come revision time. Being a Discovery Writer, I create as I write. Of course, my co-author is a major Worldbuilder, which balances out my craziness and keeps the plot on track.
I feel like an athlete who hasn’t worked out in a very, very long time, stretching my legs. Truth be told, I haven’t seriously written since finishing the final draft of Buk Tu in August, and even that was revisions. I haven’t written brand-new material since finishing the first draft last spring. Perhaps I should clarify: there were brand-new scenes in the various revisions we worked through. But there’s an entirely different feeling between writing a new scene and fitting it into the current manuscript, and discovery writing, which is how a first draft feels for me.
This long break is due entirely to my personal life. Getting married will do that to you, I suppose! There were a few times during my engagement that I felt the urge to write, but in the midst of planning a wedding, moving into a new apartment, and spending time with my sweetheart (and getting him through Black Belt Testing!), those urges all got soundly buried.
Things have settled at last, and the urge to write returned in full force. I have been nagging Sam for weeks about Buk Tri. There have been many other stories we’ve discussed in the interim, other stories which I do hope we’ll get to in the near-ish future. But with people asking me almost daily about Buk Tu, I realized that we owe it to our readers to finish the trilogy before moving on to other projects. And beyond that, I find myself truly eager to jump into Buk Tri!
It helps that Sam and I had our most productive brainstorming session OF ALL TIME on Saturday. We’ve had a couple of sessions throughout February, but I was determined to sit down and hash out as much as we could this weekend. But we accomplished far more than I could ever have anticipated! In the space of about three hours, Sam and I plotted all the major threads of Buk Tri, and then some. It was more than enough to start writing–it was enough for us to say, “This is going to be AWESOME.”
As one might hear watching an episode of Rurouni Kenshin, “Look forward to it please!”
PS: Quick update on Buk Tu–I’m told that newly-hired artist Jess Smart Smiley has the cover art in progress. Definitely excited to see the results of his labors!