Almost There

I'm headed into triple figures with B'Nar, which means I'm seven weeks away from writing the last word on this thing. Seven weeks until the legitimate hard work begins on the story beats for a fantasy trilogy that will mean THREE FUCKING YEARS of just... writing one book, starting on the next, writing the middle book, starting on the third, writing the third book, etc. etc.

And the editing. Sweet merciful Powers That Be, the editing. It's not going to be just one hundred and twenty thousand words. It's going to be thrice that. Three hundred and sixty thousand words. World building, character creation, style decisions, names... all that jazz.

I have a Trello created so I can keep stuff organised, but I'm using all the free features, so I don't even know if there's stuff I could be doing with this shiznit to keep it all together.

What I do know is that my Google Drive can't contain that much of a MarkDown document, so I'll be working in Google Docs for the duration.

I've already decided that my primary character is going to be (1) Black, (2) like really Black, (3) transfeminine, which will (4) be her driving motivation for going on this long-arse quest business in the first place. This is, of course, a big, fat middle finger to all those people who say you can't have Black or Trans people in sweeping fantasy. I already have a silica-based lifeform as the central plot point, so I'm really hemming and hawing about including all the other Fantasy Races(tm).

It's easier to write a trilogy with communication and learning to understand others as a central theme, when there's only one peoples who have their own prejudices already. It's also easier to have prejudiced people when they can honestly believe they are the only people who count.

Then there's terminology. Should I use the historically plausible 'Blackamoor' for fantasy flavour, or make up my own term? Or do I - a whiter than milk author - allow a Black character I invented name herself via my fingers? Instant tar pit.

Or I can look up what [BORROWED CULTURAL IDENTITY I CAN RESEARCH] called themselves and use that. Weigh in, folks. I want to stay the fuck away from the bad racism whilst also showing white people how they can casually be nasty to people of colour without realising it and -sometimes- without realising how they're being nasty.

Obviously, I'm going to need people with that perspective to help weigh in on that stuff. I follow lots of lovely POC and lots of lovely Trans folk, so I know about the microaggressions. I think I'm pretty good at travelling through other ppl's heads... but I want to make certain? That, and I don't want to be That White Person who takes over a marginalised narrative. So... yeah. Head-hopping pretty much has to happen through the main characters. Once I work out who the main characters are.

If I do a main boss big bad countering my heroes, I feel like I should make them a whiter-than-wonderbread incel sort. You know, since they're the consistent badguy in the modern world.

For those of you wanting to defend these folks... the last ten multiple massacres of defenceless civilians have been performed by whiter-than-wonderbread incel types.

I'm still making decisions on lots of this, so I'll probably end up adding text to Ee the Changeling while I'm busy worldbuilding this epic.

Also - this is Fantasy. Trans and POC might not want to read a hero suffering microaggressions, so... yeah. I gotta consider that. As well. If I do do some gritty reality, it's more like medieval hygiene and food spoilage than people being nasty just to have people being nasty.

I'll run it through my Tumblr Peeps. They have their finger on the pulse of the mood. I don't want to be cringe, over here. Likewise, I don't want it to get dark and I've been in a very dark mood of late.

I want to try and be the change I'd like to see in this world.