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CURIOUS TALE SATURDAYS: ARCHIVE

What Competes With

The Curious Tale?



The Curious Tale is sprawling, wonderful, and fulfilling, but it is not a universal creative outlet for me. There is still room in my mind's desire for projects that wouldn't fit on Relance. In the past I've spoken about how my Star Trek Ripoff fills a certain gap of milieus and genre types, and I've also said how good a job it does at this, The implication is that all of my creative needs can be expressed through one of these two outlets. But that isn't true.


In the real world, there are countless sources of inspiration for me. Many of them, if they were to be channeled through one of those two outlets, would have to be heavily adapted. Usually, that's still the correct course of action. Sometimes, however, the better course is to do something completely unaffiliated. Last summer I wrote a short fanfiction advancing the storyline of the character Nahiri, from Magic: The Gathering. I could have adapted this into the Star Trek Ripoff or The Curious Tale, but I preferred not to, because I wanted instant and complete access to the MTG characters, settings, and lore.


Recent developments in the MTG storyline have made it clear that my fanfiction's canonical continuity is going to be partially disintegrated in the next couple years by official story developments. And so I came to the decision to rebrand my fanfiction as original fiction—just as my Star Trek Ripoff is original fiction and not Star Trek fanfiction. You would be forgiven for thinking that I would choose one of my two existing outlets to put this new story. With enough modification, it could fit into either setting. But I decided not to do that, and instead want to keep the story as unaffiliated original fiction.


That, in turn, gave me the idea of writing a book of short stories—something I've always wanted to put under my belt as an artist, but have never credibly attempted. Alternatively, I could expand the Nahiri short story into a full-length original story. Both possibilities are exciting, and plausible.


My standing policy is that any time I am tempted to do creative writing that isn't The Curious Tale I have to justify it, because as we know I am an infamously slow writer and my fans (and I) would really appreciate it if I could just write a friggin' After The Hero book already. I declared the Star Trek Ripoff as a formal, continuing exception to this—allowing myself essentially free rein to write in that world instead, whenever I wanted. But my recent spate of interest in unaffiliated creative work has got me thinking: What, exactly, is it that's competing with The Curious Tale for my creative attentions and energy?


That's an interesting question, and this week I'm going to answer it.



The Great Catharsis

As I discussed in the recent articles on stereotypes, my writing contains a certain element of wish-fulfillment for myself...an opportunity to live out ideas and possibilities that will never happen to the real me here on Earth. Considering this motivation in a different light, my writing can be rightly said to help me cope with life's stresses and disappointments (as well as with many positive things). Last March, as you may recall, I wrote most of a short novel, set in the Star Trek Ripoff universe, that eventually revealed itself to me as my first attempt to use creative expression to cope with the life-threatening traumas that had consumed me since 2015.


Creative writing experiments since then have made it abundantly clear to me that my next major creative work is going to be a cathartic project, dealing with themes of belonging, numbness, and discouragement. Nearly every time I write creatively, no matter what brand or setting I'm working in, this is where I end up.


Unfortunately, there's no room for this in Book I of After The Hero, and no room in The Great Galavar. In the broader Curious Tale I know I could make room somewhere, but it would be parasitic enough—such a self-contained addition to the story, that doesn't serve the greater whole, and so emotionally powerful and self-centered at that—that I am exceedingly hesitant about incorporating it. Better, I have thought, to put it elsewhere.


The Star Trek Ripoff universe does have room for it, but not very smoothly. The poor character onto whom all my personal garbage got dumped in that most-of-a-novel in March 2017 was never intended to suffer from that kind of existential crisis. There's enough room in her character for it to be a viable addition, but, time and again, when I find myself thinking about the Star Trek Ripoff universe I keep going to actual science fiction stories, and not this overwhelming personal need for catharsis that I have.


In the summer of 2017, writing the short story about Nahiri gave me a third option. This need I have to process and cope with my recent years of trauma and mental anguish deserves creative expression, but my existing creative franchises don't necessarily deserve to be the toxic waste disposal sites for it. Instead I can do a different kind of story, one expressly built to serve this specific need. And my recent creative writing experiments have suggested to me that that's what I should do.



So What About The Curious Tale and the Star Trek Ripoff?

My relish for these universes and their stories is undiminished. In fact my enthusiasm and creative attention is up across the board. I've actually spent more time recently thinking about character and story development for The Curious Tale than for anything else, especially centering on the events of Book I, the Guild of Pabol, and Silence's direction in the middle of ATH.


The Star Trek Ripoff is prominent in my mind too; indeed, till very recently I suspected that this great cathartic work that I need to get out would ultimately go somewhere there, among the stars. And separately I've developed new story episode ideas and have even written some manuscript text.


I would love to work on both of those creative properties, and I could and sometimes even do work on them, but it is becoming clearer to me that, in the course of rebuilding my life from near-total destruction, the creative path ahead of me will of need be a tortuous one. I cannot simply return directly to After The Hero and crack out a book. I can't do it; not in the state I'm in. Not only have I been through hell, but my mental landscape is in ruins and I'm still under a lot of real-life stress. I need to reckon with what I've been through; I need to revive myself. I need to let it out on the page, and that's not something that looks like it belongs in Relance.


So that's the short answer to the titular question of this article: Catharsis is what competes with The Curious Tale for my creative attentions in the present.



Storytelling in the Era Beyond the Mountain

It would also be fair to say, however, that there's something else at work that competes for my creative attentions. My years on the Mountain turned out to be a major life phase transition. Poetically we could call it the transformation from youth to middle age, though I don't often think of it in those terms. My years on the Mountain separated me from any lingering illusions I had held about achieving certain dreams that in my youth I thought were inevitable or at least readily attainable. It was a time of cooling for me, of mellowing and aging and losing a certain edge. My natural voice lost its imperiousness and abrasive power. I went to the Mountain less than one year after the Draft 10 Era began, and left the Mountain five-and-a-half years later serene and mollified, as though I had just experienced a transcendent meditation or a really humbling movie.


In another sense, I also left the Mountain with a greater sense of pragmatism. The Curious Tale isn't going to be my first magnum opus (a fittingly Joshalonian oxymoron). It's going to be my only magnum opus. There won't be enough time in my life to do another series as large or involved. I'll be lucky just to finish The Curious Tale itself! This has tempered it, causing it to absorb some of my other creative burden of untold stories, but also to spit out another portion of that burden. In tandem with this tempering, story development on the Tale has helped to coalesce the story, which has the necessary consequence of omitting many unused possibilities. If The Curious Tale is going to be what it is going to be, then there are many other things that it cannot be...and those ask for expression elsewhere.


Plus, the kinds of stories I want to tell today are different from those of the past. On the surface most is the same. I'm still compelled to write about power as my central driving theme. It's the details and the nuance that have changed. The world of Relance has certain stylistic limitations that exist for good reason, but these limitations have an exclusive effect on various story ideas and, in particular, tones. For broader tonal expression I must look beyond the world of Relance, or create specialized instances of Relance, as with Empire on Ice.


Meanwhile, with my Star Trek Ripoff, I've known from the beginning to be careful not to let this thing grow to the goliath size and scope of The Curious Tale. The Star Trek Ripoff is an episodic series and franchise featuring numerous characters, locations, and plots, but it's not nearly as substantively large or artistically high-concept as The Curious Tale. So, for as large as it can be in terms of length, its creative scope and artistic boundaries are actually rather limited. This too helps feed a market inside myself for independent outlets of creative expression. And I'm also just a very broad-minded person, and have never liked being shoehorned into anything.



Creative Projects in the First Half of 2018

So, it all comes down to the practical question of: What's on my creative docket this year? Well, I've been thinking about this for weeks. I've been picking at the question from all angles. I've been doing some tentative creative writing to see what I'm really in the mood for, and what I'm actually up to from a technical standpoint.


We're currently in Season 4. It's hard to believe that; hard to believe that I started doing regular features almost four years ago. The calendar year, 2014, doesn't sound so distant, but "four years ago" is another thing entirely. Wow. And most of that time has been mired in the worst miseries of my life. Yet the Year of 32 itself was one of the high points of my life, and I can't wait to return to that level of creative productivity.


The way to get there begins here, with the resumption of the Regular Features and the undertaking of a large-scale project.


I'm using the fact that we're midway through Season 4 to my advantage: Instead of aiming for the end of calendar 2018, I'm aiming for July 2018, when Season 4 ends. That makes things more realistic, and also gives me a way to set aside a certain "convalescence" period where my creative output is intended to be more about self-healing and reestablishing production consistency. My goal for the first half of this year isn't necessarily to do anything that's good (though I will try), but simply to work some of this psychological trauma out of my system while gradually reestablishing the burden of creating content on a regular basis.



1. Fanfiction: An Original Story

I've decided, therefore, that my large creative project for the first half of this year will be to flesh out the Nahiri fanfiction into a larger original story. I've already got a working title (though I'm not ready to announce it) and have completed some of the adaptation necessary to escape Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property. I've established the central thematic symbolism and primary narrative inspirations, and have even done a bunch of additional manuscript writing in addition to the original short story from last summer.


The challenge going forward will be to flesh it all out into something coherent. As with the Prelude, this will not (likely) be the length of a full novel; rather, it will be as short or as long as it needs to be. I'm not concerned with length. The 2017 short story is about 15,000 words. I expect the final product to be significantly longer—likely in the "short novel" realm of the Prelude. But we'll see.


It won't be held to the same standards as The Curious Tale, nor will it attempt the scale of creative reach that the Tale aspires to. These qualities will expedite the development process and make success more attainable.


I don't intend to spend a lot of time talking about this book until it nears completion. There's no place for it here on CuriousTale.org. When I do release it, I haven't decided yet whether to do so as a serial or a single work. I am open to preferences, suggestions, and recommendations.


This is not a speculative announcement. This is a book that is actually going to happen, same as I committed to my big projects in the Year of 32. For better or worse, this is something I'm going to do, even if it's 100 percent crap—which I sincerely hope, and reasonably expect, that it won't be. 70 percent crap maybe, but I can do better than 100. =]



2. Other Regular Features

Curious Tale Saturdays is back, of course.


I've also created a new weekly vlog series on my YouTube channel called Ramblin' J. This series is unscripted and unstructured; it is intended as a way for me to return to the camera and get comfortable with that again, while also affording me an opportunity to vent or discuss something that I may not have the energy to write about in my journal. It has no direct relationship to The Cuious Tale.


So far, that's all I've been producing. However, I'm not finished yet. I'd like to take on a couple additional small projects. Most of it won't have to do with The Curious Tale. There will, however, be one additional Curious Tale feature to complement Curious Tale Saturdays for the remainder of this season. It's probably going to be Empire on Ice; I've already done some test writing that looks promising. I'm two-and-a-half years out of practice at this point, and haven't published any episodes since I was on the Mountain, but that hardly matters compared against the two great benefits that series offers: First, I need laughter in my life. I need to be not just creative but creative in a way that lifts my spirits, cheers me up. And the big cathartic book is not going to do that. Empire on Ice, on the other hand, is a wacky stack of malarkey. Second, it felt so good to be doing the Weekly Features back in the Year of 32, and the big three pillars of that were Curious Tale Saturdays, The Great Galavar, and Empire on Ice. I'm not able to resume The Great Galavar right now, especially with my commitment to finishing a book by the end of July, but bringing back Empire on Ice will go a long way, I think, to help me feel a little bit like the productivity. So, I'm not saying it'll be Empire on Ice for certain, but it'll probably be Empire on Ice. Whatever it is, look for it in the next couple of weeks.



A Season of Selfishness

I don't have much of an audience. There might be one or two people who actually read this article soon after I publish it. There might be zero. My creative production schedule for this year, especially for the remainder of Season 4, is entirely selfish. I'm not writing for y'alls. I've been through the worst times of my life. I'm a "survivor" now, if you can believe it (I still have trouble accepting that), and to be brutally honest surviving is still a process for me, rather than a status. I'm not out of the woods yet, and may not be for a very long time to come...if ever. I have a lot of healing to do, and my writing can help me. I want to think about myself, want to focus on me, for the next few months, and see where that leads me.


So that's it for this week. Join me here next Saturday when I talk about things in the Sodaplains other than dirt. Until then, may you too allow yourself to go first in line sometimes.





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O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!