Re-Thinking Firestar

It's amazing what time away from a story can accomplish. I was all set to start Firestar with Corey graduating from Command & Staff School. I wrote two chapters and part of a third. I then sort of dribbled out of energy.

I've learned that in my case, writer's block is an disinclination to work on a story. And the cause isn't energy or the lack thereof, but that I'm going down the wrong path. The usual cure is to not work on a story for a day or six, and then back up.

Now the trouble with Firestar is that I have all of this stuff written which I think makes a great story. Any substantial changes I make to it negates all of this work. And Corey's story is the story of the Families, too. But something I said to Joshua when he pinned me down on it reverberated last week.

Who is Corey Andersen? What drives her? What is her "got to fix" problem? I'd said, when questioned, Ulysses Grant. I'm not sure if I thought about it, or it was my subconscious finally getting fed up and providing me the answer.

Grant was a failure at everything he tried. Farming - failed. Clerking - failed. The only thing he was good at was the thing he hated the most: the military. And he was very good at the fighting part, though he learned (as 1861-62 shows) that he learned the logistics/admin side very well, too. And he was flexible. He didn't quite say "You look at a situation until it makes sense." He might as well have.

So why is Corey Andersen like Ulysses Grant? She looks at situations until she understands them. Sometimes she goes in with a pre-conceived plan. Sometimes she just takes advantage of what happens around her, and runs with it, just like Grant did. And she's lonely, just like Grant.

When Grant was posted to the West Coast it was no-dependents-allowed. Julia was his anchor. Without her he was alone, and he would drink. That's why he left the army in the 1850s. Corey is alone, too. There are her sib-sisters, shy Heather who opens up with colleagues, party-girl Sonia, and Corey, who is with the coyote packs, or reading, or running errands (alone). A party will find her on the sidelines, watching.

Corey most wants to be accepted. To be brought into a group. To be made to feel part of it. She gradually forms a group around her, which is the point of the story. And it's the stresses of combat that make that happen. People group around her, believing in her. She doesn't join a group, people join her. They accept her for what and who she is.

So that means I back up again. I go back to earlier in Firestar, back to Corey being a Squadron Lead. She is successful in combat. She goes to C&S. She goes on her Graduation Cruise (where she loses a hand) and is very successful there. She recuperates, and powers that be try to force her out of the Navy because people are looking to her, and they don't like the symbol she has become. When that doesn't work, she is posted to the de Ruyter so Edith Matsuoko can force her out of the Navy. Then comes The Raid. Does that end the story? Perhaps. I'm projecting 16-20 chapters out of this. I've got 6+ chapters done.

Other things now -
Two more short stories are in the bag. One I won't comment on for reasons that I'll reveal much later. The other is another dryad story, Heart of the Woods. Jen the dryad is married now (to her sweetie Andy), and while on their honeymoon to the Redwoods National Park, discover a body with a hand buried in a tree as only a dryad could do it. It's a sad story, and one of the people who read it called it lyrical. We'll see.

Don't worry, there's at least one more story about Jen before she marries, and I think Chloe the Hamadryad wants some attention.

I've got another porn/erotica story going, this time with an SF twist. It came from my brief introduction to online games where you inhabit and interact in a computer generated world. I want to finish it before posting it to SOL, so we'll see.

So, now it's back to the grindstone. Progress in some places is better/faster than I'd hoped for.