10 Minute Tales

Feb 28 - End-of-Month Blog, Febuary

Well, it's been a second month, and it feels like a long one (despite being the shortest). What to say about this month's writing?

Well, for those who couldn't tell, this is the first foray I've really had into cyberpunk proper. I've dabbled with sci-fi into the past, and yes, a lot of cyberpunk focuses a lot more on the weaponry aspect, but I didn't want to go down that way - a lot of it has already been done, and I wanted to explore the other aspects of it. Where would the typical citizen live? Would they try to rebuild in a similar manner to Earth, or would they instead try to strive for different ideals with different aesthetics? I don't remember what inspired the crystalline structure of the town as a whole - crystals have always intrigued me, though, so I'm sure I'll be reusing them again in the future.

This is also my first foray into a murder mystery. Not having read many in my time, I'm worried that I'm not taking it in the right direction. With little feedback, though, and (to be frank) disinterest in the genre as a whole, I don't know if I can improve on it. Nor am I really certain I want to - I spend a good chunk of my week volunteering at a bookshop in the nearby city, and though I admit there's a lot of murder mysteries on the shelves, virtually none are on the sci-fi/fantasy section. Maybe I don't need to delve too deeply in this direction... though it is something different, I'm having fun with it thus far.

Fun fact! Did you know that this had originally come to mind as a werewolf story? I've taken a lot of aspects from that original approach that you might recognise now I've said it out loud, but I hope I've been able to keep the true culprit a mystery. There's only one other reader in the world that I know for sure has it, but I'm hoping he'll keep mum on the mystery, as I think it's set to shock you. Whether or not it's cliche, I don't know - as with a lot of things about this genre! Let's just carry on forth, discovering this together!

Now, onto the elephant into the room. A lot of this month's entries have been untimed. On the one hand, I appreciate it this way, thanks in no small part to being able to watch YouTube and such videos, while also relieving the pressure of having to work to the minute. On the other hand, though, it does help me focus on the task, ensuring a higher-quality result. I'll let the reader decide which approach is better; for now, I'm going to stick with the untimed approach. To that end, I'm no longer going to mark the amount of time I spend writing individual parts. I feel as though it was kinda bugging me, have for a week or so, but I decided to wait until the end of the month to announce it.

So, uh, I've been moving house. It's been a long and shaky road, but I'm finally in another house. I still live with my family and, well, we've lived in the last house for a long time. However, the parents decided that we were losing control of the mortgage for reasons I'd rather not get into, so we decided to sell house and move on. We were going to live in a nearby village, one with much better bus access, but for unknown reasons the seller backed out at the last minute, leaving us at the mercy of our unspeakably generous neighbours, who continued to let us live under their roof for more than a month above what was originally planned. It's thanks to them you're reading this right now, actually, the house I'm moving into hasn't got the internet yet. I've been going up every night and writing my peace, before heading back down for another cool night. Internet's coming soon, though, so I should figure out a way to thank them. If you're reading this, guys, think Lindt is a good option?

So, that's another month come to its end. Honest talk? I'm proud of myself for keeping this up. Because I want the mystery story to come to its end naturally, I'm going to keep writing it into March until it's finished, at which point I'll round the month out with the story start ideas, same as I did with January. Come April, I'll pick another story to work on. Any feedback, comments, etcetera, is greatly appreciated! On top of that, if you know anybody that would enjoy my writing, please don't be afraid to share this link with them! What use is art if it cannot be appreciated?