What are you working on right now?

[Frank LeRenard]

Big project, little project, poem, story, novel, song lyrics: what are you currently writing and what's it about? What inspired it, or was it just spur of the moment, or is it part of a collaboration with someone? Does it fit somehow into your long-term goals as a writer (e.g. practicing a particular aspect, like description or dialogue), or are you just doing it for fun?

Talk about your projects here.

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I'll start: from now until the foreseeable future, I'm focusing on editing (which is really re-writing at this stage) my big novel project (currently untitled). The novel follows Qiitsneh, a fox with a bad name, trying to learn more about mysterious ancient ruins that are scattered all over the world. He's hampered by everyone else's disinterest, but he believes many of the seemingly random events in his life preventing him from achieving his goals are also being influenced by an enigmatic being he calls the Imp, which comes every now and then to speak with him and try to persuade him into leading a normal, work-a-day life like everyone else. So he pushes forward, spurred on only by the desire to know something no one else knows.

I've been writing this novel off and on for somewhere around a decade, now. This is the fourth or fifth re-write (I can't remember which anymore), which I'm going to force myself into saying is the final one. This means that after it's done, I'm going to attempt sending it out for publication, in which case my focus is on making it as solid and well-written as it can be. This is a long process: line-by-line, word-by-word editing, choosing playful but sensible language, maintaining a consistent tone across the whole body, filling in plot holes, etc. It may be becoming a whole lot of arthouse nonsense, but that's what I find amusing at this point in time, so that's what I'm turning it into.

If, in the end, someone reads it and finds it cohesive and thoughtfully put together, whether they enjoy reading it or not, I'll have achieved my goal.


Now, everybody else. Tell us about your work. Writers love to talk about their own work, last I checked.

[Eduard]

At the moment I am working on lyrics for my band, as well as rehearsals, as I also play drums as part of it.

Other than that, I am keeping an eye out for submission calls and other publishing things so that I may forward my works to.

As for other projects, I am still piling up ideas for a possible sci-fi novel.

[Agitoho]

I'm currently working on a revamp of a story my husband and I have been collaborating on for as long as we've known each other (so nearly a decade). We use the main characters in all sort of alternate universe stuff, so while I'm rewriting the main story on my own, he's got them off doing an entirely different thing. We don't really plan on doing anything really official with these stories. We simply have fun playing around with the characters, their backgrounds, their home and after we write them one way for forty or so chapters, we revamp it and start over again. It's nice writing practice, really.

I'm also working on scripts for a personal fan project and other original works, partially because I like planning things, partially so I know where things are headed and can avoid plot holes and the like. At some point, I'll post them online, which is publishing them as far as I'm concerned. At some point, I need to put some stories on here. I'm curious of what the turn out would be for it.

[Wolf-Bone]

I was collabing with some other aspiring rappers to form a group. We still keep in touch but until I can get my car fixed I can't really be where I want to be with them because we don't want to do what some groups do where we record our parts separately because that's actually what contributed to the decline in quality of one of the main groups we're inspired by, Bone Thugs N Harmony. They were a better group, as are more rap groups, when they act like a band and have everyone in the same studio trading verses and interjecting in each other's statements, harmonizing and everything to make a solid, unified effort and not some paint by numbers bullshit rap.

Some are encouraging me to try to do something solo but the truth is I have little inspiration without my D.O.G.S as we decided to call ourselves. I could never decide what to do as a solo rapper. But when I'm in a group, I can just find my niche within whatever sound we collectively decide to go with and maintain that style. On my own, I'm all over the place. I could sound like Eazy-E on one song and like an even worse version of the dreadlocked, G-Funk inspired Vanilla Ice on the next and it's too inconsistent for my or anyone else's liking.

So instead what I'm writing, when I write at all is some things to fill in the blanks of an old graphic novel idea I had back in the day. Like a lot of furry artists and writers I want to create an anthro world. Some do it with humans, some do without, and when I decided I wanted to do away with the human element, it created a new problem. There had to be some cataclysmic event to kick off the origin story, how the world the anthros live in got to be so violent and chaotic. There was to be a great war between reptilians and everyone else in the early days, but it just didn't seem realistic enough, because these dinosaurs never went extinct by the time mammals became powerful enough to even pose a threat to their dominance as happened in our world.

So instead, I'm in the process of writing up a race you don't see very often in furry works: the great apes. Yes, they, the ones who would become humans in our world, became too big for their britches too fast, tried to enslave a few of the wrong kinds of anthro, and in the process taught anthros all the wrong lessons: hate, envy, greed, racism, totalitarianism and, eventually, genocide. Only the apes didn't commit the genocide, the anthros did, against them, during an uprising which led to a war. Prior to that, most anthro races would have taken prisoners to assimilate into their culture. But the apes, they came to believe, could not be civilized, could never be anything but a menace and an oppressor, because it was all they seemed to understand.

So, one fateful day, when some especially vindictive rebel slave-turned warlord (I'm thinking a dark lion modeled after Scar from The Lion King with a hefty helping of Vlad The Impaler thrown in for good measure) and his army get the upper hand in the last of these battles, as he declares victory to his followers, he makes another declaration, in the form of actions. He starts taking heads, literally, and forbids the taking of prisoners for anything but to serve as examples to the other apes. Only he dies before he can tell the others to stop at some point.

It's going to change literally everything I had originally planned but what I had originally planned was comparatively weak for a parable about racism, imperialism and all of humanity's other evils in anthro form.

[Celesol]

Hey man, something worth doing is worth doing right! Props on you for taking the time to actually bother editing more than once, and an in-depth edit at that. To many young writers these days don't seem to bother with that, and to many editors seem to actually let it slip by, judging by huge amount of trash writing that line shelves these days.

I love the synopsis btw, the fact that the main character seems to be a scholarly type in search of answers is right down my alley.

Currently I'm working on Nanowrimo. I'm just a hobbyist writer more than anything - I'm way more passionate about drawing - but I still love to dabble in it for fun. The story is really simple, (a very straight forward 'accomplish goal' sort of story) but I did that inttentionally so as to focus more on the setting. I'm not exactly sure why I got this strange idea into my head, but the world is an odd mix of Ancient Greek architecture/culture, mixed with old Celtic Mythology... don't ask me why. I like where it's heading so far, so there is that.

[Gnarl]

I currently have several things in to publishers, mostly short stuff. I am working on the re-write of Mars and Coffee, as well as a new novel called "Space Pirates...The adventures of Captain Graymuzzle" I have actually started sending in stories to publishers inside and outside the fandom. So far only one rejection. I have also decided to take one of my older manuscripts and revisit it for possibly adding to my Kindle pile. I joined the FWG forums and have learned a lot as well as received a lot of encouragment. It is also a great place to pick up leads on submission calls.

[Rokusho]

I'm trying to write a back story for my Mass Effect OC.. Unsure if I will ever post it though,not a confident writer.

[Frank LeRenard]

So instead, I'm in the process of writing up a race you don't see very often in furry works: the great apes.

That is true. Furries don't seem real fond of primates... except for lemurs, because lemurs are adorable.
Which may be all there is to it, come to think of it.

I'm trying to write a back story for my Mass Effect OC.. Unsure if I will ever post it though,not a confident writer.

Hey, don't feel like you have to share stuff right away. Just keep playing around for a while, until you're happier with the stuff you're creating.

[Levi]

I am on the third or fourth draft (I forget, because I didn't number sequentially) of a story I "finished" two years ago and have been polishing off and on between other projects ever since. I recently finished a draft and had hoped that could be it, but the feedback I've received indicated that there was more to be told, and I agreed with it.

So, rather than a short story, it'll be a novel of some variety. My goal is to finish this draft by Thanksgiving and have something to shop around early next year.

[Frank LeRenard]

Don't want to tell us what it's about? Might spur a little excitement prior to its publication, you never know.