Two weeks later . . .

[anthimeria]

. . . specifically, two weeks after DPI concluded.

The ceremony was lovely, even if saying goodbye to everyone I met was sad.  We were given one last book as a "graduation" gift, a hardcover Hemingway.  I hope to stay in touch with everyone, but I think we were all either beat or frantic after the Institute, since the e-mail list that was getting five to ten messages a day during DPI has fallen almost silent.  I'm certainly still pretty tired, but then I've been going nonstop since January (trimesters are awesome . . . except that I graduated with barely enough time to finish my DPI homework before getting on the plane in July).

In the weeks I've been home, I've mostly slept, written, and read.  This pleases me.  Oh, and job-searched.  But that's less fun.
 

As far as my writerly, midnight-showing flailings go, I've settled on the children's/YA steampunk.  It's a mystery story!  I've never written mystery before, so I'm re-reading all my old easy reader/children's novels, since that's when I was in my mystery phase.  It's kinda absurd how excited I am about this story, but I'm also a little worried.  On the one hand, I enjoy geeking out about Victorian fashion and gears and dirigibles.  On the other hand, though, the worldbuilding and outlining for this story is going SO FAST compared to how long it took me to get The Novel together.  I know my writing, and things I write quickly tend to be bad.  While I'd love to get deep into the worldbuilding and have the outline done by the time I start editing The Novel in September, I don't know if I have the time to be as thorough as I should be.

I took nine months to research, worldbuild, character build and plot The Novel.  Mind you, I was in school at the time, so it's not like I was putting too much concerted effort in, but still--it's been two weeks since Denver.  While I buckled down to this story pretty fast, two weeks (well, two and a half weeks) is not enough time to thoroughly worldbuild and research, not even for a children's novel.

And yet I think I have a good hold of the world!  Part of me thinks, hey, you've done this a few times, maybe you're getting better.  The rest of me thinks, nuh-uh, you have a system for a reason.

Also, I'm still struggling with some of the central names for things (y'know . . . made-up jobs.  I do love spec-fic).  And my main character lived in my head for a while, but her best friend joined her and he's pushy, so I'm trying to find my way back to her.  The more complicated her character profile got, the less I felt I knew her.  I should probably be settled in her head before I write anything.

At least this has a title.  Or a workable working title, anyway.  Prospective series name: City in the Sky.  Book title: Skywatch.