02 April 2009


I am faced with a ... not a conundrum, really, but a thing to wonder about.

When I started writing Nothing Beside Remains in, uh, late 2001? early 2002? Something like that, anyway, I had vague senses of where things would go and what would happen and what their culture was like. I'd put in some things that were vague, since I figured I'd go back and fix it later. You're not really supposed to admit that you're just making it up as you go along, but I sort of was. I mean, I knew where everything was going, in general, and sort of how they got there, but... yeah.

I finished it in 2005, and have been lethargically editing it ever since. I finally got it all typed up around Christmas, so now I'm faced with the task of, uh, making it not suck. Because suck it does. It's a first draft; that's sort of a tautology.

Anyway. I'm not sure when the fighter types became Chinese martial artists, but they did, down to learning forms in temples (think Shaolin monks.) That was part of it from the beginning, but it was one of those vagaries that I hadn't laid out. And since I started studying tai chi, my philosophy has developed somewhat, and since I'm learning weapons now, I'm delving further into the philosophy of weapons styles.

Interesting. And maybe one of these years I'll sit down and write out every worldbuildy detail that's in my head. Or maybe I'll save that for when it's necessary: the giganto alternate history and future space opera thing.

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