Far From the Shallow Now

First off, I may feel shame about the reference in the title, but I will not apologize for it.

The last few weeks have certainly been fun and terrifying. For those of you who have not been following, I have released the first chapter of my science fiction web serial, The Bloodlet Sun in three weekly installments. I wish I could say the weekly schedule would continue but between life and a day job it just wouldn’t be possible. That said, I’m as eager to write the continuation of the story as much as I hope some of you are eager to read it.

The reason that it’s been fun is because The Bloodlet Sun has existed as a project for me for almost fifteen years. I have gone in detail about this in my introductory entry so there’s no need to reiterate it here, but I want to emphasize what a cool weird feeling it is to have something live in your head for so long and then have it out there in a sort of no-going-back-now format. Of course, that’s precisely what makes it so terrifying. Whereas before it existed in notes and outlines, now anything that goes out there is set in stone. I won’t say that I won’t cheat a bit and maybe retcon something here and there, but there’s a limit to what I can do and now I have to live with my choices.
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So far we’ve been introduced to Mikarik, one of the central characters of the saga, and the Thorians, the main political and military power in the region of our galaxy known as the Known Reaches. I don’t recall when the idea of the Thorian collective conscious first entered my vision for the species, but it has formed a central tenant of their civilization ever since. Imagine a species where its members actually benefited internally from acting for the collective good, but that also wasn’t an insect or Borg-like hive mind that erased all individuality in favour of collectivism. And then imagine being one of the few members of that species who don’t share that connection with the rest of their friends, family, and wider community. As the saga progresses, I hope to further explore this curious identity of the “netkarthi” or “severed”.

One of my goals in writing The Bloodlet Sun has been to strike a balance in how I introduce worldbuilding. On the one hand, I don’t want it to be a terminology dump with no background or explanations, and on the other hand, I don’t want too many unnecessary tangents and expositions clogging up the story. Hopefully I got the right mix here and you’d be interested to know more about Thorians, Mraborans, the Last Gasp and Anthar Kai.

As a writer that prefers to outline everything from the beginning (one of the reasons why actually starting on this project has taken so long), it’s fascinating for me to see that now that the writing process has begun, it’s already having an influence on future timelines. Each element that I think I’m introducing in passing might end up living deeper into the story.

A bit of a heads up is that the Known Reaches is a big place. As you can see, it took Mikarik three months to journey from Vaparozh to Earth, and it takes about six months two cross the entirety of the Known Reaches on a ship that makes decent speed. There’s a lot going on between those two points, and the eyes of a single character would not be able to do the world justice. So be prepared to explore many points of view as you go through the story, though of course, like Mikarik, some characters will be more central than others.

So for those of you that are here since the beginning, thank you, and I hope to continue this journey with you for many years ahead.