A beautiful morning where I spent most of it talking about the “second book” (I always think of “the second shooter” when I say that), and my goals for next year.
Yesterday’s Word Count: 6911
Today’s Starting Count: 57,405
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Glad to hear that “Ishmael Goes to College” isn’t in the offing; it’s hard to imagine anything longer than a short story on that topic. Also glad to hear that you are not overthinking the process now, but just doing what works for you. Keep on writing, we’ll keep on buying and reading!
In my own experience, I found books in the YA section to be lacking in almost every way. By the time I was middle school, I went strait from reading Animorphs and my dad’s Tom Swift Jr. books, to reading Peter F. Hamilton, Dan Simmons, and Alister Reynolds. But of course my experience doesn’t translate to every other kid. I was brought up in a family of voracious readers. Just my two cents.
I am in agreement that there isn’t a story to tell about Ishmael’s Academy days. He didn’t change much as a character between Full and Double Share. Before you even mentioned this I was also thinking that “he’s going back to Newmar anyway.” He can reminisce about anything really important.
Please no Ishmael goes to collage, no story there. I would be interested in the adventures of Pip after the Academy. I think that would be a very good stand alone book. I think that the other people from the early Share books were fairly well dealt with and the personnel attachments had sort of concluded. Those of us who have been in the Navy and served aboard ship know that shipmates come and they go, and that is the way it is. Seldom do you form life long attachments to them but it does happen. That was (in my opinion) the case with Pip. They started out as friends and were still close friends as they left the Academy. There could I hope be a story there.
About the only reason for you to do a college novel would be so you could show how you think teaching and learning should be done. That might get on the preachy side, though. I’m partial to – eventually – Pip’s story of growing up as a kid on a Fast Packet. There’s a certain parallel there between Pip and Otto, maybe. Still, there’s a good chance you could do that in a novella, perhaps focusing on the circumstances that drove Pip to run away.
I have a feeling there’s going to be room in the Llamas Wood world, as well, once you’re done with this initial trilogy. I know someone mentioned following her son’s path – but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the town of Ravenwood and its inhabitants. They’ve been touched by Tanith’s magic – perhaps that has long-term side effects? *GRINS* There’s always the tradition of the short stories framed by the Inn regulars – Callahan’s, The White Hart, the Black Widowers, etc. That might be a good place to store things that don’t work as full stories, or even as novellas, but just short, possibly incomplete scenes that have the storyteller giving his tale to that point, and maybe being finished later, maybe never… Stories can be like that. They’re all part of the NeverEnding Story, anyway.
I’ve never understood the people who ask where ideas come from. Ideas are the easy part – the hard part is all the work to turn the idea into a product!
It’s great to hear you so excited about writing again.
Naturally, I’m curious as to what direction Ishmael’s life takes after the end of book six in the Trader’s Tales, now that he has deep pockets and a chance to re-examine his life and his place in the universe. Still, it might be interesting to examine what happens in between books 4 and 5 of the Trader’s Tales. There must be some fun (and as yet untold) stories connected with Ishmael’s gradual climb in rank from third mate to first mate, his growing relationship with the crew of the Tinker and how he woes and marries Jen.
My opinion as regards the question of the ‘Young Adult’ genre is that it isn’t worth being so arbitrary with one’s writing. If you have a story and the framework of same demands that you tell it in an explicit manner, then by all means do so. It is difficult enough to write a good story in the first place without first hobbling one’s creative self with artificial constraints imposed from without.