Ape's writing thread
- Thread starter Mendalla
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Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Working on a new story right now. Borrows some ideas from my Tana-verse but tries to keep some distance from those stories (which are here). Originally, I had set out to do outright sequels featuring Tana's daughter (resulting in this) but now I'm taking a shot at just referencing elements of the setting (like the monothestic faith of Denith/Denyth) in a story that's standalone. It's kind of a supernatural thriller but in a fantasy world. A minor character is dismembered, a rarity for me. It happens offscreen but there's a horrific scene where the protagonists (a priestess and her novice/apprentice) find the results. Warring spirits and other weirdness are involved. I'm wrestling a bit right now, trying to put the next part of the story together. Also debating a possible romantic subplot between the novice and the victim's brother (the victim had been flirting with her originally before I decided to dispatch him).
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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So my writing projects keep stalling, mostly because they keep growing out of control into something bigger than I intended. So I am going back to something I tried a while ago but did not get far with. I basically have enough horror fiction published on StoriesSpace to actually compile a decent sized anthology of them (9 stories including my first published story). So I put the original drafts into a new, consistent format and am now doing medium-heavy edits on them and trying to sort out what the order should be. Then I can experiment with how best to compile and format them into an epub and figure out what to do for a cover (perhaps even commission some art, I hate to use AI for this since I still find AI generated art a bit stilted and bland).
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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New story underway. I took an idea that was originally going to be a fantasy story, about something lurking in a volcano, and moved it to the present day. So from secondary world fantasy to modern dark fantasy or even horror. I've got a couple scientists (who are exes) with some doctoral students researching a somewhat mysterious volcanic island. One of the scientists has a strange sense of dread about the place. She also has lingering feelings for the ex, even though their relationship had only lasted a few months. Add in a past hookup she had with another member of the team and there's plenty of potential for relationship drama.
And then there's her sense of something under/in the volcano. In the fantasy version, it was an imprisoned spirit of fire. Not sure about the modern version yet. Something similar maybe. Still pondering that. A kaiju-esque monster (kaiju = Godzilla and similar) or Lovecraftian "god" would be options, too. Maybe she's just mildly psychic and knows intuitively that the island is building for an eruption.
Yes, my trips to Iceland and Hawaii are influential here, esp. the latter since that was just a bit over a month ago.
And then there's her sense of something under/in the volcano. In the fantasy version, it was an imprisoned spirit of fire. Not sure about the modern version yet. Something similar maybe. Still pondering that. A kaiju-esque monster (kaiju = Godzilla and similar) or Lovecraftian "god" would be options, too. Maybe she's just mildly psychic and knows intuitively that the island is building for an eruption.
Yes, my trips to Iceland and Hawaii are influential here, esp. the latter since that was just a bit over a month ago.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
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Some people would suggest you were gestating a book, not a story.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Oh, for sure. Certainly something longer that I could get away with on my current sites. Even this new one is likely going to end up as a novelette or novella or something. Hard to tell until I get it all sorted.
The problem is, until I pull the trigger on retiring, I don't really have the time between work and household stuff to take on longer work. But I'm trying.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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So as I am prone to doing, I am working on a horror story for Halloween. I have been a fan of the vampire genre for a long time (probably goes back to reading Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula line when I was probably too young to be reading it). And I have only ever written one vampire story which is now lost to the mists of time. So I decided this would be the year.
No sweet sexy loverboy/girl vamps for me. After all, Bram Stoker's original Dracula is one of my alltime favourite novels. Stephen King's Salem's Lot is one of my favourites of his novels, too. And my favourite vampire movie is the 1922 Nosferatu (with the proviso that I haven't seen the recent remake). So the vampire in my story is a sinister, controlling being lurking in a cemetery.
Currently feel it is getting close to I'm working with an AI generator to get a cover image.
EDIT: F***ing AI. Makes one edit that I ask for but then makes two others I didn't. If it was a human, I'd scream and rage at it.
No sweet sexy loverboy/girl vamps for me. After all, Bram Stoker's original Dracula is one of my alltime favourite novels. Stephen King's Salem's Lot is one of my favourites of his novels, too. And my favourite vampire movie is the 1922 Nosferatu (with the proviso that I haven't seen the recent remake). So the vampire in my story is a sinister, controlling being lurking in a cemetery.
Currently feel it is getting close to I'm working with an AI generator to get a cover image.
EDIT: F***ing AI. Makes one edit that I ask for but then makes two others I didn't. If it was a human, I'd scream and rage at it.
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Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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- He/Him/His
So one thing that I have been exploring is options for tools to do the actual writing. My approach up to now has been to keep notes in a note-taking program and then write in a word processor, most recently LibreOffice Writer. But when I moved off of Windows, i had to replace Microsoft OneNote as my note-taker (it's not available for Linux unless you use the web version) and settled on a freeware (not open source but free to use for individuals, businesses are supposed to buy a per user license) program called Obsidian.
Obsidian takes the approach of the notes being just files using a simple language called Markdown to code things like headings, boldface, italics, bullets, etc. You create a folder called a "vault" and then the notes (i.e. the markdown files) are stored in a folder structure you build inside the vault. For like $75 a year, you can use the developer's cloud to synch your vault(s) between devices (with the software being free, this is how they generate a revenue stream). Or there's a number of approaches people are using to do it for free using cloud drives and open source software for synchronizing between devices. There's a number of videos on YouTube on how to do that.
But here is the thing, unlike OneNote which is really built around note taking and has rather freeform screens, Obsidian's Markdown files are just text files with markup, similar to any word processor but with far fewer features. So, sure, you can do traditional point form notes and that sort of thing. But you can also write in paragraphs. Given this, I started experimenting with just writing my stories right in Obsidian and found it works fairly well.
Then I came across the videos at the bottom. Bestselling American author Hugh Howey (best known for the Silo series, adapted for television on Apple and Prime) wrote a neat little program called Neo, basically a stripped down word processor with some writer-focused features, for his own use. And then, in a wonderful contribution to the writing community, he released it as open source. Which means it is free and available for all major desktop operating systems (and he, or another developer, recently ported it to Apple iPad and iPhones). But it also means anyone can go to his site on a system called Github and get a copy of the source code to develop their own modifications and extensions. And based on his latest video about the most recent upgrades, that is happening. In particular, people are adapting it to other languages (Howey, being American, wrote it with US English as the base).
So I am giving Neo a shot. And I do like it. Obsidian has the advantage of keeping my notes and drafts in the same place (my Obsidian vault folder) so I can create links between them but isn't really as friendly for flatout writing and editing. In particular, Neo will automatically break chapters up and that sort of thing, something I have to do manually in Obsidian. It has writer features like writing goals (write 1500 words per day kind of thing) that would require installing add-ons in Obsidian. And Neo can provide a publication or submission ready PDF file, whereas with Obsidian I would have to import the Markdown file into a word processor (and all the major word processors including Libre do support Markdown now) and massage the formatting there.
So I'm experimenting to see what works. For short fiction, I might stick with Obsidian since most of that gets posted online and the formatting on my side doesn't matter. In fact, my two main writing sites have a Markdown-based editor so Obsidian might be the better tool for them. I would then keep Neo for longer works like novellas and novels.
Hugh Howey's video introducing Neo:
And an update from this week on new features, including the iDevice version:
Obsidian takes the approach of the notes being just files using a simple language called Markdown to code things like headings, boldface, italics, bullets, etc. You create a folder called a "vault" and then the notes (i.e. the markdown files) are stored in a folder structure you build inside the vault. For like $75 a year, you can use the developer's cloud to synch your vault(s) between devices (with the software being free, this is how they generate a revenue stream). Or there's a number of approaches people are using to do it for free using cloud drives and open source software for synchronizing between devices. There's a number of videos on YouTube on how to do that.
But here is the thing, unlike OneNote which is really built around note taking and has rather freeform screens, Obsidian's Markdown files are just text files with markup, similar to any word processor but with far fewer features. So, sure, you can do traditional point form notes and that sort of thing. But you can also write in paragraphs. Given this, I started experimenting with just writing my stories right in Obsidian and found it works fairly well.
Then I came across the videos at the bottom. Bestselling American author Hugh Howey (best known for the Silo series, adapted for television on Apple and Prime) wrote a neat little program called Neo, basically a stripped down word processor with some writer-focused features, for his own use. And then, in a wonderful contribution to the writing community, he released it as open source. Which means it is free and available for all major desktop operating systems (and he, or another developer, recently ported it to Apple iPad and iPhones). But it also means anyone can go to his site on a system called Github and get a copy of the source code to develop their own modifications and extensions. And based on his latest video about the most recent upgrades, that is happening. In particular, people are adapting it to other languages (Howey, being American, wrote it with US English as the base).
So I am giving Neo a shot. And I do like it. Obsidian has the advantage of keeping my notes and drafts in the same place (my Obsidian vault folder) so I can create links between them but isn't really as friendly for flatout writing and editing. In particular, Neo will automatically break chapters up and that sort of thing, something I have to do manually in Obsidian. It has writer features like writing goals (write 1500 words per day kind of thing) that would require installing add-ons in Obsidian. And Neo can provide a publication or submission ready PDF file, whereas with Obsidian I would have to import the Markdown file into a word processor (and all the major word processors including Libre do support Markdown now) and massage the formatting there.
So I'm experimenting to see what works. For short fiction, I might stick with Obsidian since most of that gets posted online and the formatting on my side doesn't matter. In fact, my two main writing sites have a Markdown-based editor so Obsidian might be the better tool for them. I would then keep Neo for longer works like novellas and novels.
Hugh Howey's video introducing Neo:
And an update from this week on new features, including the iDevice version:
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