State of the Writer, May 2011

It's been a bit more than a year since my last update of my various writing projects, and I figured given the recent news it was high time to update again.

First, from what was listed then:

• Crown of Druthal (Book 1 of Crown of Druthal series): This project is well and truly Trunked.  I don't plan on going back to it in the foreseeable future.  Doing it was definitely a valuable learning experience, but the problems it has are fundamental flaws.  Namely, it's a travelogue where the places I wanted the characters to go dictated the plot, rather than the other way around.
• Thorn of Dentonhill (Book 1 of Veranix series): Finished. I'm currently polishing the synopses of planned sequels so my agent can shop it as a potential series.  But other than that, it's as done as I can make it.    
• Holver Alley Crew (Book 1 of Holver Alley Crew series): A finished, polished draft.  
• Maradaine Constabulary (Book 1 of Maradaine Constabulary series): Finished first draft, with tons of notes from my critique group to start the process of the second draft.
• From Star to Star (Book 1 of Banshee series): The original concept behind this I've more or less utterly scrapped, trashing just about everything except the central character and the name of the ship (though the nature of the name of the ship itself has changed, from being the actual name to an humanization of an alien name.)  I really think the new concept can be a lot of fun, but I need to do a lot of work before real writing can begin.
• The Way of the Shield (Book 1 of Vanguard series): I still have a full outline, and I've done some more detail work, and some initial writing.  But it's only been starting to come together now, since I've just figured out some key things about the main character that were eluding me.

Now, what else is there? A few things that are really just at the Initial Concept stage: characters, setting, rough starts and scraps.  There's the tentatively named "Starstruck", an alien abduction/space opera story, "Zodiac 13", a modern/soft-sci-fi action adventure, and the scintillatingly titled "Untitled YA Project".  Those might, of course, never coalesce into an actual written works.  Lord knows I have stuff in the graveyard.