The Crane Girl Rides Again

Once upon a time, I was writing a novel called The Crane Girl. I had finished the first draft and started on the second, brimming with excitement and ideas. I had learned so much from my last novel, and I couldn’t wait to use those lessons to make this one better.

And then, sometime in the first half of 2014, I stopped.

What happened? Mostly, depression happened. For a few months there, I couldn’t even write my blog or my diary, much less something as exacting as a novel. Hell, I could barely take a shower. I didn’t care about Crane Girl. I hardly cared about anything.

But nothing is forever, except for taxes – I maintain that death is negotiable – and eventually I restarted my engine. First the blog and the diary. Then the Buffy stories. And then…

This past weekend, I received a visit from that gentleman and scholar, my good friend Ben Trube. As always, he was excited about stories. Stories he was reading, stories he was writing – and stories I had written.

I realized it might be time to go back.

Right now I’m tearing apart Crane Girl and rebuilding it from the ground up. The core feelings and plot elements – and some of the characters – will remain, but everything else is shape-shifting faster than Odo on a warm day. Maybe the biggest change is that I’m thinking of shifting from high fantasy to late-1950s-era real world (with fantasy elements). I’ve never done a novel in the real world, so it ought to be fun. At the very least, I’ll learn a few things about history.

Well, anyway. No matter what happens, it’ll be fun.

I’ll keep you posted.