Black Hours Diary Entry No. 5 Mid-Draft Blues

Today was the most creatively constipated day I've had in a while. The kind of day when even a fart of words is better than nothing at all. And that's all I managed, one lousy fart of a couple of hundred words.
And I'll tell you why: the Mid-Draft Blues

It had to happen at some point. It certainly happened during the writing of The Hoard of Mhorrer, and I reckon it happens to other authors too. It’s not writer’s block, nothing so disastrous, but it’s still a mighty pain in the arse. It’s that moment during the first draft where the momentum suddenly collapses and the writing grinds to a halt like an old banger attempting to climb a hill. There can be a number of reasons for it, from the distraction of pre-publication, to publicity of post-publication, to not being in love with the project from the beginning, through to being more in love with another project of the future. (This list is not exhaustive). The main reason for my current mid-draft blues, is the distraction of another project – sparked in part by the recent proofing of The Hoard of Mhorrer.

Ever since I excised out an entire sub-plot from Book 2, I’ve been thinking about a short novel that fits nicely between The Hoard of Mhorrer (Book 2) and The Fortress of Black Glass (which was Book 3, but is now Book 4 – is this too confusing?).
The “new” Book 3 will be called The Traitor of Light, and will tell a story that runs parallel with The Hoard of Mhorrer. It’s a Dar’uka story (it might even be subtitled that way) and by concentrating on the Dar’uka and their unearthly adventures over the course of 250-300 pages I’ll be able to explore the characters in a way I couldn’t in The Hoard of Mhorrer.

Admittedly, I fell into a trap in the original edit of The Hoard of Mhorrer that turned the Dar’uka into bores – sanctimonious immortals that seemed a little too ignorant and arrogant, similarly to how the Jedi knights are portrayed in Lucas’ let down, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
As the creator of The Secret War books and the mythology, I know the Dar’uka are more than this, but that means nothing if the author doesn’t write this down. And in the original edit of The Hoard of Mhorrer, I didn’t – so it was cut.

With The Traitor of Light I get the opportunity to write what I wanted to about the Dar’uka. And it won’t be easy, because I’ll be treading the tight-rope of making the Dar’uka interesting while at the same time trying not to dispel the mystery surrounding them. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, so to keep the majesty of these “beautiful horrors” the blade needs to reveal marvels, but not cut too deep.

So how do I do that, you might ask?
Well, I’m picking on one of the Dar’uka and telling his story, that’s how: from mortal to immortal, a story of sacrifice/betrayal and tragedy/revelation. It won’t explain away Dar’uka lore, but it will certainly infuse them with more humanity and, inevitably, flaws. Sure they’ll still be arrogant, but the reader will know why this is, and perhaps even forgive them. There’ll also be opportunity for the big set-pieces that have been absent from the first two books, i.e. epic battles between armies of angels and demons at the Gates of Hell that some readers have been asking for. The anticipation of writing about hordes of demons clashing with the Dar’uka on a broken and ruined world far from ours has brought out the fan-boy in me. And I can’t wait to start writing it.

And so you see why I’ve hit the mid-draft blues. I’ve spent this Black Hours diary entry talking about a completely different book. So imagine what my mind is doing. It’s a tough thing to concentrate on what’s on the page before you when there’s so much excitement going on in the background, especially when a future project feels electric and new.

But The Traitor of Light is but a distraction – a project for 2009 and something to be boxed away until the right time. It’s exciting thinking about it, but then so was The Black Hours while I was putting the finishing touches to The Hoard of Mhorrer, as will The Fortress of Black Glass when I finish The Traitor of Light, and so on and so on.
(“The grass is greener” seems quite an apt proverb for my writing but only because I have an insatiable hunger and impatience to tell stories – and I have plenty of stories still to tell.)

I’m sure there is a cure to the mid-draft blues, and like Silas Eldritch (the main character in The Black Hours) I’m working on finding it.

And when I do, I’ll post it right here…