So, as you may know, last week’s blog post ended up quite long, so I decided to split it up into two parts. This week’s blog will be a continuation of my last post, in which I discussed all of my finished writing projects and works. Last week’s blog brought us all the way up to my current projects, which I’ll be discussing in-depth today. Most of these are well past the planning stage and I’m at least several chapters into the first draft, but all of them are novels that I fully intend to finish. It might be that not all of them work out, but that’s okay! Sometimes it’s good to simply start!
My first, and currently biggest project is called Eternal Elegy, currently sitting at 30,000 words. This is a horror/romance set in an unusual dark fantasy setting. When one of the King’s mages, Allister Emerson, is falsely accused of stealing a fragment of unicorn horn, he is banished to the depths of a magic-steeped valley said to be unchanged since ancient times. Lost in the woods and on the brink of death, he forms a deal with Nox, a strange creature who promises to keep him alive in exchange for knowledge of the world and creatures outside the valley. Loosely inspired by Beauty and the Beast, Eternal Elegy is a story about a man who falls in love with a shapeshifter, for better or worse.
Whilst I fully plan to finish Elegy in the coming months, I have recently taken a step back. Elegy is a slow-burning book which tackles some incredibly difficult themes, and this makes it just as difficult to write. It is easy to become burnt-out whilst writing this, and it is important not to push myself too hard in case it becomes a chore and loses its meaning.
Tikadi’s Gift, the second book I am working on, is much lighter in tone; this book was a challenge I set myself and it is currently the only story I am working on traditionally with pen and paper, rather than digitally. It’s a children’s high fantasy about a herd of unicorns. Its core concept is that every unicorn’s horn is made of gemstone, and the different type of stone is what gives them their powers. The main character, Tikadi’s horn is the first diamond ever seen in the Meadow herd, and because of this the herd whispers that he must be somehow special. But as he grows and his powers fail to develop, Tikadi must rise to the challenge and prove that it’s not always the horn that makes the unicorn.
Once my notebook is full, I plan to go ahead and type it up, editing as I go. I plan to upload it to my blog in stages, and perhaps self-publish with a few illustrations. I’m finding writing Tikadi’s gift to be incredibly relaxing, and a welcome change from the doom and gloom of Eternal Elegy. Being in a small notebook also means I can slip it into my pocket to write whilst working my night shifts. Overall, whilst it isn’t the most poignant or difficult story to write, it’s the one that I’m having the most fun with. And sometimes, that’s the most important thing!
My last venture into the world of sci-fi/fantasy is called Sabertooth. It’s a speculative fantasy, set in an alternate reality in which the ice-age never ended and humanity is long extinct. It follows in the footsteps of classics like Ratha’s Creature, following a tribe of evolved smilodon cats. When the Smilodon king is killed by a dire wolf and raised tensions between the two species escalate to all-out war, the sabertooth King’s only surviving daughter must rise to the challenge. She must travel across what what would have been North America in order to save her tribe and its ancient traditions. Finally, with the help of the mammoth shamans of the far north, she must find a way to retrieve her father’s stolen sabers and finally claim her rightful place as the new King.
Sabertooth is in the later stages of planning and research. This project is a little different to the others in that if I move ahead with it, I hope to make it as accurate as possible to the ecosystem of the Pleistocene, with accurate plants, animals and behaviours. My interest for this project stems from a long-standing love of natural history and a rapidly-growing collection of fossils. Whilst I have few fossils from the Pleistocene era, I find the study of its wildlife and megafauna especially fascinating, and I would love to use my writing to bring it back to life with a unique flavour of fantasy.
Well… that about covers my current projects! Usually, I try to work on only one at a time, however when working on a long piece of literature like Elegy, I tend to drop in and out of working on it over a long period of time. It helps a lot when my high-effort, high-stakes books are complimented by pieces that are relatively stress-free to write, especially when they get me me away from the computer screen as well.
As you may have guessed, my current active project is constantly changing. Either I’ll finish one and move onto another, or I’ll lose interest and make the ultimate decision to replace it with something that makes me happy. As such, any one of these projects may never see the light of day! With writing being a hobby, I’m able to do the things that I love and work at my own pace, but sometimes choosing what to move ahead with and what to give up on is the hardest part of being a writer. When I find a project I connect with though, knowing I’ve reached the end and finally finished it is the sweetest feeling of all.
Thank you all for tuning in this week, and I hope you enjoyed hearing about my unfinished projects!
Wanting more? Tune in next week, or if you haven’t already, take a look through my previous posts!
Miles Nelson Official 