Introduction
If you're here, somehow, by accident, and lost: this is the site of Otherwood, currently a work-in-progress for National Novel Writing Month 2005. If you're allergic to fantasy, more specifically urban or modern fantasy in the vein of Sandman, Clive Barker, or Charles de Lint, you're not going to have any fun here. Likewise, if you're easily offended by things like non-mainstream sexuality, cross-dressing, feminism, "alternative" religion, or the occult being portrayed in a positive light, reading this is probably not going to be the best use of your time. That's all the warning you're going to get about that, so consider wisely now.
The rest of you, I hope, are going to have a pretty good time here, though you get a couple of caveats of your own. First off, it may become quickly apparent that Otherwood is part of a longer and larger cycle of tales, and a late one at that; and much of the rest is not yet complete. It's my hope that the world I've created holds up to a headfirst plunge like this, but I admit to lacking perspective. If something is terribly confusing, feel free to inquire about it in the comments, and if it doesn't involve spoilers (and isn't something inane like "Why do they have to be lesbians?"), I'll do my best to answer.
Second, this is very much a first draft, and will show up here more or less as it's being done, with little or no time for revision. Incoherence, dreadful pacing, adjectivitis and logorhea are all par for the course, and the inevitable results of the mad dash towards 50,000 words by November 30. Rest assured there will probably be a rewrite, when some of those things might even be fixed.
If you're not new to the Eldritch universe - especially if you followed along with any of 2002's still-alas-unfinished A Thousand Thrones - a few notes may be in order to bring you up to speed. Otherwood is set ten years after A Thousand Thrones and presents a number of things that have changed since that work saw the light; some of these are the result of the interim, and some are because of things I've simply changed my mind about regarding the setting. Again, I'm more than happy to answer questions in the comments - though that answer, of course, may well be "I'm not saying yet," just so you know.
Finally, credit where it's due: The god-city Nisroch, and the angels Malachi and Masbeth (all of which are scheduled to appear or be mentioned in the work to come), are the creations of Spyder, who has graciously allowed me to play with her toys and bend them to my own questionable purposes. The rest is, in the main, entirely my invention, with the exception of the Comte de Saint-Germain, who is of course his own.
See you on the other side of the tale.
dlk
The rest of you, I hope, are going to have a pretty good time here, though you get a couple of caveats of your own. First off, it may become quickly apparent that Otherwood is part of a longer and larger cycle of tales, and a late one at that; and much of the rest is not yet complete. It's my hope that the world I've created holds up to a headfirst plunge like this, but I admit to lacking perspective. If something is terribly confusing, feel free to inquire about it in the comments, and if it doesn't involve spoilers (and isn't something inane like "Why do they have to be lesbians?"), I'll do my best to answer.
Second, this is very much a first draft, and will show up here more or less as it's being done, with little or no time for revision. Incoherence, dreadful pacing, adjectivitis and logorhea are all par for the course, and the inevitable results of the mad dash towards 50,000 words by November 30. Rest assured there will probably be a rewrite, when some of those things might even be fixed.
If you're not new to the Eldritch universe - especially if you followed along with any of 2002's still-alas-unfinished A Thousand Thrones - a few notes may be in order to bring you up to speed. Otherwood is set ten years after A Thousand Thrones and presents a number of things that have changed since that work saw the light; some of these are the result of the interim, and some are because of things I've simply changed my mind about regarding the setting. Again, I'm more than happy to answer questions in the comments - though that answer, of course, may well be "I'm not saying yet," just so you know.
Finally, credit where it's due: The god-city Nisroch, and the angels Malachi and Masbeth (all of which are scheduled to appear or be mentioned in the work to come), are the creations of Spyder, who has graciously allowed me to play with her toys and bend them to my own questionable purposes. The rest is, in the main, entirely my invention, with the exception of the Comte de Saint-Germain, who is of course his own.
See you on the other side of the tale.
dlk
posted by Dan L-K | 7:19 PM
3 Comments:
Being a writer of longer and larger cycle of tales, let me say that I share your lack of perspective.
Sure, it seems perfectly natural to me to be currently writing a novel set 3200 years before the last and hundred years after the next one I attempted, without so much as a "this takes place in..." -- it all makes sense *to us* the writer, at least most of the time.
I must here admit that I haven't read all of A Thousand Thrones. I got as far as the market-place and something embarassingly mundane like eye strain + general laziness made me look left and, alas, never return.
(you may be happy to note that in the years since then I have read maybe two novels -- none of which were The Lord of the Rings, so I hope you aren't too upset.)
What I did read, however, I loved, and it's always hovering at the back of my mind (it says: "Read Dan's novel, you idiot. Also get off you ass and do some work.")
Regardless, I shall begin reading Otherwood. I really need a prose respite from my own plot doctoring. Plus, if you have any cool ideas cooking I might, um, steal them.
V
If that was all the farther you got in A Thousand Thrones, that's a lot of girl-on-girl action you missed out on. ^___^
I need to finish and revise that one sometime, possibly in that order.
Ah, all the more reason to revisit that text.
I was just looking through my old Savant short stories folder (in preparation for a retrospective post on allVishal), and it's alarming how many stories I had simply forgotten, and how many stories are simply unfinished.
At one point it literally felt as if I hadn't written them, but I was discovering the work of someone else -- or even the writings of Savant himself.
Strange.
V
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