Inaugural post
Dev Blog #0
Welcome to Branching the Broca!
This will be a space that you can follow me behind the scenes on my process and how that reflects in my projects, with plenty of side tangents included. With this being my inaugural post, I want to set our roots.
First, these letters are meant to be short and digestible, while also being something fun for me to write and connect with my audience. Also, there will be a lower standard of editing done (compared to my main newsletter), so I can rush these newsletters to the presses, so pardon the improper use of .
Second, these will also act as a living, breathing record of where I have come form, and how my writing has changes, so while I will do my best to write for you, sometimes there will be things really for me. Such as moments where I am having ideas and go into the flow of capturing them.
Third, things sometimes will be abstract or high level, typically the later we get into the process. This is because “blog post” and “newsletters” count as publishing, which then affects the ability to publish with traditional methods.
Fourth, and most important, Everything here is subject to change and nothing is a promise. Things might seem to be on the outside promising ideas, then get lost in the dark woods to never come home. Others might get purposely released, while more might be hidden in a deep glade away from everyone. I will try my best to only put things here that I feel “have legs” to get where they are going.
Finally, Branching the Broca, is my space to branch into and out of the Broca’s area of my brain. This space is a part of the human brain in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually in your left. This area’s function has been linked to speech production, granted most of the brain articles I have been reading recently go back and forth on how much this impacts written word. But I am committed to the name now.
So where are those stories at?
Out of my hands…
Well, as mentioned in my main newsletter of September 2023, I have some stories I released out into the world.
Donner is a story that is currently being queried, the process to get it published, at magazine publications.
I also have two Drabbles that are being queried, because of being so short I don’t want to give too anything away.
In Progress…
As for my novel, I am currently in editing in my development stage! While I have done a fair share of development work with shorter projects, and agree many writing skills can scale, I wanted help to ensure I am going the right way. I have learned that editing things in the wrong order at the wrong time can cause a lot of rework, so I am reading some creative writing books pertaining to novel and editing to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can to steer this project well.
One of the big things is hammering out the character plot decisions are still all logical to the characters, and ensuring each character's voice is consistent. While I feel like the main character, lets call them B, is strong in this sense, there are points within the story it feels off, as well as one of the major characters, S, is mostly blank within what is on the page. Which is strange, as I feel S’s choices are consistent even if it’s not shown or told to the reader as to why.
So my two most pressing problems, with connecting problems, I need to separate out and fix. First, the main character, B, and their choices need to be fixed, as that could cause major rewrites and waste time addressing other things first. I am calling this project “WildWoods”, this is not the title, just how I internally refer to the project. I like to give a lot of my works “quick names” that I can refer to for various reasons.
I have a related short story to my novel! So over the course of the last year working on the novel, had a lot of life and other stories throw it off course more than I wanted, so I have had a lot of time for the world to grow. This has led to a list of short stories that want to be in this world.
This also lets me broach a potential problem, the setting. It is not unheard of, but its very niche that can be a tough sell. I am dedicated, and want to write things that interest me and those that read it will read it. Not that I want to write it just for me, as that leads to its own problems. So between research and my thoughts, writing a short seemed like an excellent test of the waters in the genre. Which could be a good way to build towards the novel.
So of these ideas in this world, one story I wrapped up the first draft, everything written out start to finish, a few weeks ago. It’s been on the shelf for a few weeks, and I will soon be ready to read it with fresh eyes before I start the long process of editing. My name for this project is “Cave&Wood”.
New things…
I also have the idea for next month’s main newsletter that I am quite excited about!