Honey Tree, CampNaNo, old site, and more!
Welcome to April!
As per usual, Camp NaNoWriMo is running for the month (I only got to do Screnzy twice, but I’ll admit, I’m better at this). If you’re not familiar with it, I suggest heading over to nanowrimo.org and checking out the events they run every year – camp in April & July, the main event in November. For the camp events you set your own goals, and this month I’m taking it easy with 20,000 words on a Shakespeare retelling. I’m just wrapping up my first chapter of the novel (working title: “A Storm Comes to Messina Senior High”), and have been having a lot of fun figuring out my own twists on this classic tale. As you can see in the third image, my rubber duck Frank has been helping stare me down while I sit at the keyboard and navel gaze.
For less seasonal projects, I’ve just wrapped the first arc of Honey Tree! I’m setting up the hub site for the series at the moment and, as you can see, I’ve mocked up a banner image that my more graphically design inclined friends don’t totally hate. I spent the better part of thirty six hours meticulously mapping out each entry of the nine arcs onto little post it notes and arranging them in order, but the master scene list, final cast, and scene breakdowns are now complete. Posting for this series was pushed back to August when I realised it still needed work back in early January, and I’m hoping with this overhaul we’ll be able to start then! Look forward to meeting Nairi for real soon, and if you’d like to get a head start on the series and meet her best friends Linden and Agatha, then you mght want to head over to my Patreon and consider throwing me a dollar to read The Cherry Conundrum and other shorts under the “outtakes” tag. I’ve been working on this series for the last two years, and I’m very exited to finally start showing people the fruits of my development.
If you’ve been following my writing exploits for a while, then you may have seen my sporadic posting over on my Mordran & Prior website. Tragically I have nuked it from orbit to relaunch my online writing presence from a more convenient account and start this blog (which, incidentally, is why my current WordPress username ends in a “v” instead of an “f”), but the stories that were posted on it are not gone forever. I’ll be (re-)posting updated versions of The Meddlers, Fire Fox, and others, and finishing the Winter’s Lament horror anthology, and instead of being paywalled on my patreon, they will be available for free once more here on this site. Mordran & Prior was a passion project from my teen years, and it’s sad to close the door on that URL, but in the nostalgic sense. Millicent Mordran & Peter Prior are back in the ideas box, and may return at a later date, particularly if I dip my toe into middle grade fiction the way I originally wanted to with them.
My collaboration with 4thstate launched last night, much to both our happiness! Read about Princess in The Hungry Moon Hangs Heavy here or check out the story and accompanyiang art on either of our Patreon’s. 4thstate is a good friend and an incredible artist, and it was an absolute delight to see their work on this story. (I may have a concept sketch tacked onto my bureau mirror.) April’s Patreon exclusive story is in the works, and I’m also working on my first $10 tier post about the way I construct plots! Important excerpt from the cliff notes version: don’t pull your punches.
Whether or not you’re participating in CampNaNo, working on your own projects, adjusting to a self isolated life, or feeling that mid-semester crunch, I wish you success this April!
Rory Banks 