Lying Fallow

Recently I've been getting little or no progress on my writing. It seems as though my imagination has stalled, and I just can't seem to get the grasp on my story worlds any more.

I'm thinking that at least part of it is the simple fact that most of my creative energy is going to my Web design projects, getting my personal webpage and my book review site, The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf, up and running again. There just isn't any energy left over.

However, it may not mean that the process of story has stopped altogether, even if words aren't coming out. I've often found that these periods are rather like having a field lay fallow -- there's still stuff developing, just under the surface.

I just hope that it won't suddenly leap back up and grab me while I'm still busy with Web projects. This spring I had a character suddenly spring up and demand to have his story told, right while I was still struggling to get an enormous mass of backlogged projects cleared and had no time to spare.

Parallels

As I'm working on Steam Heat, the story of the 708 Rebellion in Codyland, I'm noticing just how many parallels there are between it and the story of the young King Rene XIV of the Swamp Kingdom and his battles with his uncle Sebastien, who usurped the Cypress Throne.

In particular, I was fiddling with the question of just how important Archbishop Coquinael, the papal nuncio to Codyland at the time, was in the 708 Rebellion. Sidor, nuncio to the Swamp Kingdom, is a major figure in the novel of Rene and Sebastien, but I really didn't know how much Coquinael did in the 708 Rebellion, or if he was even nuncio yet. I just knew that by Where the Madwinds Blow, the planned sequel to Steam Heat, he and Ligo Rafferty do not get along well, but have to work together professionally.

However, I'm beginning to think that I will be finding out a lot more of him as I go along.