Angela Slatter on What It’s Like To Finish a Trilogy

Angela Slatter has written a post about writing the third book in a trilogy and figuring out structures for the Always Trust In Books blog.

It amuses me because a friend of mine recently commented that I do not seem to like geeky things, citing the fact that I rarely seem to talk about Star Wars or Star Trek or Doctor Who.

Meanwhile, I suspect that I am the person referenced who banged on about story structure and Star Wars in Angela’s presence a little too often, because it’s spent a lot of time as my go-to for structure examples (back in the days before I banged on about story structure and Die Hard instead…)

For the record: I’m a fan of Star Wars, fan of Doctor Who. Usually irritated by Star Trek, outside of Discovery and Deep Space Nine, because it never fits what I want from the narrative and the abstract level in which their space battles never feels like it has much tension. I was a big fan of Babylon 5, courtesy of Sean Cunningham insisting we stop a late-night D&D game in order to watch episodes of the second series during its original run (Babylon 5 is aided by encountering it when once the continuity is in full swing–I suspect, if I’d watched Season 1 first, I would have been a lot less forgiving).

So…yes, I’m a fan of many things. Often quietly, because I learned to keep my mouth shut about such things over the years–the conversations I want to have about them usually don’t fit the things people think of as fan-like, and frequently involve the kind of analysis that is not-fun for folks who just want to enjoy things.

I am, for the record, a fan of Angela Slatter.

Restoration is out in mass market paperback on July 9, should you need it to finish off your collection.

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My partner has discovered TikTok recently, which means she’ll occasionally show me fascinating 15-second clips of real people moving and emoting like anime characters. Every now and then I start pondering the creative possibilities of the platform, thinking about how writers can use it to do interesting thing.

Then I come to my senses and try to think about other things, for I am old and grumpy and far too easily distracted by rapid bursts of movement in the corner of my vision.

I suspect that this is one of those tools I’m content to let other people explore, and report back with interesting treasures.

Right now, I’m reducing my cognitive load and eliminating online inputs that have gone from useful-things-I-enjoy-thinking-about-and-understanding-the-theory-of to online-distractions-that-get-into-my-head-and-distract-me. Generally, this means cutting out the podcast listening in the car and online communities focused on indie publishing, replacing them with the comparatively old-school approach of listening to music and actually writing things.

Partially, this has been done by picking up Freedom and setting “business hours” where I’m blocked from accessing various websites. Freedom have lured me away from RescueTime, which blends similar blocking functions with online tracking, through the simple expedient of offering one-and-done payment for the premium model instead of going for a subscription model.

Partially this has been done by going analogue and diving into notebooks, focusing my attention down to a single page and filling it with squiggly ink.