Clee Hill: Blog

Just a quick note to clarify what might happen to Polinka next.

Her holiday story was originally intended as an introduction for me to get to know her as she slotted into a larger world that I've been working on and conceptualising for a couple of years or more now. That introduction ballooned a little, mostly because any attempts to hurry things up resulted in the story lacking certain key moments, both plot and personal. Which is how we got where we are, with Polinka going on holiday, having one self-image, becoming oddly closer to her father in an intimate but non-sexual way, and learning she is really not interested in men after all, much to her own surprise.

Her story, going forward, will open up both the larger story in which she is a part, and also her attempts to go 'kiss a girl'. And her music.

For now that 'book 2' remains only a list of plot points and character beats, without a structure or a plan. It will come, but not for a while. I have a lot of other things to work on, tidy up, and some even publish. I have also learned the importance of taking 'down time' from each of the stories I'm working on so I don't feel burned out or 'obligated' towards them. Ultimately, everything I write is, first and foremost, me entertaining myself, and also staving off the moment when I start talking aloud to my characters.

Sorry, Polinka? Staff meeting? The Rowdens are there? And the Walkersons? Okay, be there in a minute...

Clee

So for the longest time I kept revising and rewriting things because I was sure, no matter how good a draft was, I could do even better given one more pass. And sometimes I could. And sometimes I killed my love for what I had written, turning it all into a chore.

This is also, incidentally, why the continuation of Greyshough Redux is a little slow in getting underway as I just looked at all those words, all the things needing to be added, removed, rewritten, and just decided no. So instead it's all being re-written as if from scratch, as that will be quicker than editing it into shape.

Back to my point. No more perfectionism. Whilst that might also mean a few more typos than normal, it should also mean a little more posting than the past five years.

Such as today, and now you get to meet Polinka, a spunky young woman who has been keeping me busy and typing for a year or more now.

Bonne Chance...CH

Before anyone gets too excited, all that is getting uploaded for now are the updated chapters after my recent (final) edit as I took notes and tidied up some of the punctuation. No story changes. No character changes. Just proofing and tidying.

The rest of the story is beginning to firm up, and my next task will be to work through the next few chapters, see what's there, what isn't, and what shouldn't be. That should take a while as there are about 400k of words to work through before I can get to writing the remaining and concluding chapters. For context, that 100k more than what is published here so far. Yeah, going to be a while. I'm also going to stop writing such long chapters because some of them are 25k each and editing/proofing them takes more than a day. Oof. Oh, and there are 80k of scenes and scenelets I need to audit to see if there is anything in there worth incorporating into the main story.

So the TLDR as the kids are saying, nothing new yet, lots of work for me, but it is still happening even if it does feel like it needs some more taming to get it under control and headed for the finale.

400K!?

Yikes...CH

After a year or so of mulling over what to do with the Greyshough following last January's (unpublished) rewrite where I wrote out Leri, I had an idea of how to do it. Sacrifice all earlier plans for Book 3, cut most of Book 2, and it just might work. And I get to reinstate Leri who I felt guilty about cutting in the first place.

Slight problem.

I have so many different versions of this story, from the original drafts through the various (attempted) rewrites, that I was not able to easily find the version as published here. Meaning I had to download my own story and copy it back into my word processor before I could begin reading through, taking notes, and planning for the continuation to conclusion.

Ho hum.

TLDR; I know how to do it, but like I did with Laika/Arlaud's story, I want to let it breathe, so it won't be any time soon, but it is on the cards. As is a full and proper backup.

CH

It was quite the thing, coming back here to post new work after such a long time, and returning with something rather different to my earlier stories. I had no idea how this new story would be received.

Instead, to my humble delight, everyone who has messaged me here has been so kind, enjoying the story, enjoying how I've written it, and in a couple of cases, get a bad dose of it for Arlaud, too. Same.

To pull back the curtain a little, the fact is that Arlaud was almost an afterthought in terms of this story. Initially it was begun with only Laika and an intention to see if the Sith could be more reasonable than the Jedi caricature. I needed something for Laika to do, hence the stowaway who can 'hide' from her. Why would someone risk stowing away? For that I needed a character, and the character of 'Arlaud' is one I have been trying in a few different settings under her 'real' name rather than 'Arlaud' over the past year or so. Indeed, there is a completed draft of an 85K story of her going on a camping holiday with his single dad, the whole of which was the setup for something more than probably won't be written as intended, but which gave me a lot of insights into who 'Arlaud' is. As for her background in slavery, this is mostly drawn from when I was studying Roman law at university and we learned how, in the late empire, the rights of slaves and their owners became a lot more complicated than the snapshot of history we usually get, with obligations on the owner for a slave's wellbeing and very confused thinking over how you could 'own' a sentient being. All this, and more, was poured into my noodling around over the idea of a 'nice' Sith without the clutter of canon. Even better, I have no idea when in the timeline of Star Wars this is set, LOL.

Finally, for those who have asked or might be wondering, yes, there will be a sequel, set on Laika's home world, and with a ton of world-building for me as I build out her history, culture, and families. It's basically plotted and sketched that out now, and now I'm leaving it to bubble away in my subconscious for a week or so, to see what I come up with or have forgotten. After that I'll be into the writing, so, and making no promises, maybe three months from now. We'll see.

So, again, thank you everyone who has read it, enjoyed it, and messaged me about it. It does warm the cockles...

CH