Starting Over
On Restarting The Project, Plus Resetting This Substack
Greetings!
Welcome to The Known World, where I post about the characters, places, and things pertaining to the world setting that will be featured in my planned book, a work-in-progress known as The Other Side of the Sun.
TL;DR: Behold! This will hopefully be the final “weather report” dispatch to be published here, because I want to remake the story and this Substack, but keep the setting and story world content.
Reading Time: ~ 5 Minutes
First, Let’s Get That Last “Weather Report” Part Out Of The Way…
OK, so it’s been a few months since I last worked on anything related to the Known World setting, much less The Other Side of the Sun.
To be candid, I’ve had to deal with a really severe case of writer’s block compounded by an overall fear of failure. I wrote the first drafts for a pair of short stories, but then suddenly the aforesaid writer’s block hit and… BAM! That was it. Everything came to a dead stop.
In the past, whenever I couldn’t come up with anything new to add to a storyline or plot, I simply switched over to curating and crafting my settings and characters instead. After a bit of such crafting, inspiration would usually return and then I would switch back to writing story again.
But this time, nothing was clicking at all.
After wrestling with that blockage for about a week back in early December, I stepped back from the whole thing. I wasn’t sure if I would ever come back to The Known World / The Other Side of the Sun, but I didn’t want to call the whole thing off yet. I just wanted to do some other things for a while, so I did.
Then yesterday, I came back around to revisiting both the world setting and the two stories I’d previously written.
With a fresh set of eyes and an unblocked brain, I feel ready to take this on again. Huzzah!
What’s Next: The Stories
After reviewing the two stories, I concluded that they weren’t as horrible as I had feared, but I also believe I can write them better - you know, give them more sabor (a Spanish term that literally means “flavor” but also refers to giving something some style or flair).
So I’ve decided to pursue that. I’ll let you know when they’ve become shareable.
What’s Next: The World Setting And Story Background
The world setting itself - the plant Vadu, the Known World and the continents of Glosa and Ydo, the Kingdom of Bryn, Meldûn Borderlands, Jêda Highlands, etc. - is mostly fine, and like any other author/writer I will be continuing world-build forever and a day.
Some of it already is quite shareable, so I’ll definitely but looking to share more of that with you. A few things - like my map of the Meldûn Borderlands - require some work still, and I’m ready to get after that as well.
On the other hand, the longer range historical backstory is very much going to require some significant changes, for reasons I can’t disclose without giving away too much too soon. The good news is, the overarching backstory doesn’t really come up much in most of the early stories I already have on the boards. So I have some space to fix the problematic parts of that.
As my daughter likes to say, everything is figureoutable. I’ll figure it out.
Resetting The Known World Substack
So now we get to today’s big change: This Substack.
After some reflection on things over the weekend, I’ve decided to entirely reset this Substack, The Known World, which had about 30 articles (or Dispatches, as I like to call them) published on it until this morning. I’ve unpublished all of my previously written posts and I’m starting over with this one.
I will be adding some of the articles back this coming week. Some articles, like the Pronunciation Guide, will likely come back in whole and unchanged. Other articles, like the Dispatches I wrote about the story cast, will be revised into articles about individual characters.
Long story short: I will be reposting some prior content, which may end up in your inbox if you are subscribing to the newsletter version. You can choose to reread them or ignore them as you prefer. Just know that new articles will be forthcoming as well, wherein I will introduce new characters, new places and new things worth mentioning.
My overall plan for the Substack going forward is to publish articles that focus on specific topics regarding story and/or setting. I want the articles to be informative - no more “weather report” dispatches about how I’m progressing with this map or that short story. Simply stated: When something is fit to be published, I will simply publish it here.
What About The Book?
As was the plan all along, when I have enough stories in place, I’ll publish an actual book. Otherwise, The Other Side of the Sun will be published someday. In due course. When it’s time. No deadlines.
In the meantime, certain curated short stories that have been properly gleaned to remove traces of mediocrity will be shared here accordingly.
Wrapping It Up (For Today)
So there you have it: We’re doing a reset and changing some of the ways we do things here on the Substack starting now, and we’ll be posting new stuff as it is vetted and deemed fit to be shared.
I will be spending the rest of this three-day weekend sharing some quality time with the Missus, but early next week we’ll start re-publishing some “greatest hits” content while adding some new content.
Conclusion
That’s it for today! Thank you for reading this Dispatch.
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Until next time, safe journeys to you and yours!
— B.E. Turpin
So glad about your revived ambition. Best of luck!