I’m about halfway through my “standalone” cyberpunk novel, and I think I’m at the most difficult part. So, of course, I’m skipping over it and forging ahead with the plan to come back later.
This is super difficult for me. The way the story unfolds in my head, it’s nigh impossible for me to know what happens later when I don’t know what happens now. That seems a little silly when, really, I’m just adapting a role-playing game my friend and I have already completed. But the adaptation is extensive, and certain elements have to be entirely re-conceived. The events, though, surely the events…
Nope. Alas. The story, which fits into my larger Voidstrider universe, turns largely on the personal choices of the protagonist. The moral dilemma she will face at the end. And that remains unchanged from our game. But how she gets there…
Well, I’ll figure it out. For now, I should be drafting Chapter 15. It’s a sneaky action set piece that starts out as an exciting but ultimately procedural heist scene which … well, spoilers, nevermind. Anyway, that’s what I should be working on. But like I said, it’s hard for me to skip over something and really know what happens in the next chapter without being absolutely certain of what happened in the last. So here I am, procrastinating with blogging. Heh.
Before I run off … my friend from the RPG? I’ve been sending Em the chapters as I get them done, and her feedback has been remarkably … encouraging. Whenever I toil through some painful chapter, doing my best to get the details right, agonizing over what I think is abject failure … she shoots back an email in response to the latest chapter, pointing out some bit of goodness I hadn’t even noticed in my obsession over what I think went wrong.
It’s extremely helpful. Good to have friends out there.
John A. Underwood 