TRAVERSING Z

Prima Materia

Prima Materia has begun!

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Dear people, Prima Materia, aka “the vampire War & Peace,” is happening at last. It’s about warring vampires, the alchemists who want their blood, and the return of a serpent god; it’s set in a diverse, queer, grubby, bawdy Enlightenment Europe both like and unlike our own, where “science” and “reason” are often in the eye of the beholder and beings not quite human walk among us. It’s my passion project; it’s the series that brought me back to writing.

And now you can follow along as I write it, at primamateria.online!

The website will be part serial, part wiki for the project. Right now I’m posting a prequel novella, Seeds of Truer Natures, and then on September 30th we’ll start book one of the series. I expect it will run through May, after which we’ll start right in on book two.

Along the way I’ll also be posting related material: research notes, thoughts about my writing process, glossaries and character guides, and the collages and reading excerpts that I’m using to mindmap the thematic arcs of the series.

Read an excerpt for free, then check out the top-level menus for the nuts and bolts of how this will work … and then join me! It’s going to be quite a ride.

the view from march

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INTERVIEWER
You have said that writing is a hostile act; I have always wanted to ask you why.


JOAN DIDION
It’s hostile in that you’re trying to make somebody see something the way you see it, trying to impose your idea, your picture. It’s hostile to try to wrench around someone else’s mind that way. Quite often you want to tell somebody your dream, your nightmare. Well, nobody wants to hear about someone else’s dream, good or bad; nobody wants to walk around with it. The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to the dream.

I cannot remember when I last wrote. Last night I made the decision to say no (after days of arguing for the best possible schedule for this project, ugh) because I finally sat down and looked at my calendar and realized: there truly aren’t enough hours in the day. Something has to give.

I also realized I need to rewrite Prima Materia in omni. This may pass. But it solves so many problems. So many. And creates this vast, elegant circle to a piece I wrote back when I first started this whole thing, when I was different, a difference I can’t go back to but would like to hold dear nonetheless.

I like vast, elegant structures. They are the bones I need to hang my words on, the meta-outline that keeps me from falling off the edge of the world.

The Didion quote is from the Art of Fiction, the long-running interview series in The Paris Review, which used to be free but is now partially behind a paywall. Which is fine, it’s fair, we need to re-learn to pay for art, whether it’s through government support or direct subscription. It’s on my list for when I’m flush again.

Before you get to the paywall, though, you have the above, and this:

A certain amount of resistance is good for anybody. It keeps you awake.

Which was worth waking up for, this morning.

Catching up

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I’ve been there and back again – to Florida and back, that is, where I celebrated my father’s birthday. While I was gone Leviathan finished its introductory sale and Vacui Magia was featured by Bookbub, all of which made for a week that went by far too fast. The only downside was the last night, when I had my first encounter with the terribly-named noseeum (seriously, can you imagine using such a name in a story) and apparently I’ll have the joy of their lingering nibbles for another week or so. Send aloe vera, please.

Other things that happened this past week or so:

  • Marie Blanchet reviewed Leviathan and I squeed for ages. 😀
  • I was interviewed by the delightful hosts of Dissecting Dragons, for which I was incredibly nervous AND just wanting to listen to Jules and Madeleine chat, their chemistry is so very good. It was also remarkable as it’s the first time I’ve uttered a word about my novel project in public, so yeah, there’s that. Describing WIPs aloud always makes them both smaller and much more real. Eep.
    (The novel project, that is, not the standalone that I’ve been toying with for about a decade or so. Ahem. Because it’s important to clarify which massive unfinished WIP I’m referring to.)
  • “Properties of Obligate Pearls” went live on Podcastle, and wow, I can still feel that one.
  • I will be at Worldcon 76 in San Jose! My books will be for sale at the Broad Universe table, and I’ll be manning it for part of the weekend, so stay tuned for that schedule.
  • Not specifically my writing, but it feels important to tell you all that while I was away I started back down the rabbit hole of Lois McMaster Bujold, so between that re-read, my own projects, and some much-needed freelance work, I’m anticipating a very quiet July ’round these parts.