Teeny Tiny Baby Steps

I have eighty-five chapters to go before I can literally close the book on A Devil's Tale. I already have a small pack of ideas swarming for my notice, and none of them are about how to write the third book of Kingdom of Sand. As I write this, I'm battling the creeping tides of exhaustion, depression, and the increasing weight of old age. Probably the increasing weight of old age.

I dunno. I've had a lot of physical health issues, lately. A friend diagnosed me with old.

There was a week where I sailed through some chapters, but now I'm feeling a little bit lost with where I'm going. So now the chapters are dripping in sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. Until an idea strikes.

I can't not write, so I know a good idea is going to happen. Besides, I'm almost done with this one.

Meanwhile, I have two ideas lurking in the wings. They may or may not be sextologies, I don't think I have any more like that in me, but they are set in Alfarell, where A Devil's Tale is happening.

One pre-dates Kosh's situation and may or may not pre-date Human existence on Alfarell. It boils down to "Interspecies relationships form despite the Xenophobia Wars."

Actually, so does the other one. The first one I mentioned up there is about an Elf and an Orc [Harukh in Alfarell] falling in lesbians with each other while trying to stop a war between their peoples. I'm basically playing with a lot of romance tropes I mislike and making them actually be good.

As for the second one, it's Humans and Gnolls finding a common ground. The Gnolls are a potential magic-made folk and generally dismissed as barbaric hordes laying waste to everything in their path. Humans used to be portrayed with the same memes so I get to explore the falsities of racism. And I may have some fun with Gnoll anatomy, since they're largely based on hyenas... and I want my Gnoll MC to be a surprise girl.

If you know anything about hyena anatomy, you know exactly how that mistake could happen.

I have more of a plot for my Elf/Orc thing than I do the Human/Gnoll one.

BUT... I really should finish A Devil's Tale.

I want to do that too. That's the important part. I want to sink myself into finishing the eighty-five chapters. Then sink myself into a few of my side-projects while I take a firkin break from A Devil's Tale.

Finding people willing to help me make the things go. And then using them to make stuff. A few different creative projects here and there. A new routine. And then, when the pressure builds and the new idea cements itself... I launch into a whole new book.

And somewhere in there, I'll be pitching what I can where I can. Or turning them into some variety of entertainment for the masses. Making what I do more amenable to what I'm starting to think of as "TikTok Brain." Minute snippets with something to watch while I read either part or whole of a thing.

That's going to need a lot of stuff too.

All of these are on the back-burners. I'm working on getting some software to behave whenever I have the time, energy, and bravery to poke bits of it and see what it does. It's going to come together. Eventually.

I'm good at 'eventually'.