If you’re new here, welcome! This monthly series of “At the Desk” is a repost of my newsletter "Crafting Eden”. You can read my writing updates chronologically, and also sign up so that you receive writing news, homestead updates, and opportunities to influence my publishing journey straight to your inbox. Enjoy!
To catch you up, for the last few years I've been writing sci-fantasy; a sub-category of sci-fi. Dune and Star Wars fit here, "a hybrid genre blending advanced technology, space travel, etc. with magic, supernatural powers, etc.".
Attempting to wrestle a collection of scenes into a novel with young children while co-running a clinic with Kyle—well, it happens seasonally; almost none in the summer, lots in the winter, and variable shoulder months. My writer's group advised that my original book concept be split into two, and so the manuscript I'm revising now is the first half of a planned duology. It's currently at 77,000 words and I'm aiming for 90k. That's about 350 pages. Whew.
I've had a couple working titles, but I've landed on:
THE RESONANCE BETWEEN OUR SUNS
Here's the "elevator pitch":
Rumpelstiltskin meets reverse Handmaid’s Tale: to boost her fading career, spurned songwriter Valia Shiau bargains with an enigmatic tech CEO to surrogate on a new world. Mystery, meaning, and mutiny.
In the finished print novel, I would like to prioritize human artists, as my feelings on AI art are still very mixed, but for character mockups I found Adobe's Firefly remarkably helpful. This image is fairly close to my mind's eye!
“Valia is a grassroots songwriter who lives on the West Coast, territory operated by StarrTech Industries. For the last 10 years, she’s stayed off-grid and is a payday away from launching an indie radio station with her partner Soren. At his urging, they’re playing one last gig; a Company-sponsored competition that sounds suspiciously like a PR vehicle for the flagging space program... what could go wrong?”
There's so much more of the story I'm excited to share in the coming months, as well as the writing & self-publishing process. Until then...
