I’m very happy to say that I’ve been having a bit of a resurgence in my writing in the last month, and it’s mainly been directed at Navigator / Parasites 3. I usually find it quite hard to shift between narratives, so I’ve been doing chunks of Kael and Alessia chapters, and chunks of Basteel chapters, and I’m about 15 – 20k words further along than I was at the start of the year.
I have to be honest: this book is a slightly different one to the other two. In Parasites, our companions were exploring, and despite the difficult backdrop, I wanted a strong theme of wonder to come through the book. Kael and Alessia are explorers, discovering new and fantastic places, however dangerous they might be. In Dusk, there’s a threat, but for a great deal of the book it’s intangible, allowing us to look at new places with a more relaxed lens.
In the third novel, the Lyran people are in more immediate danger, and I don’t want to mess around with an illusion that that’s fine. In Dusk, we’re only seeing the first tentative conflicts between the Lyrans and the Tardigrades, and the Lyrans are more than able to deal with them, given their adaptability and resilience. In #3, it’s war, and Lyra is not equipped for war.
The book isn’t intended to be entirely bleak, and a great deal of it revolves around finding hope, and placing trust in friends, but there is absolutely a theme of sustained peril throughout. One of the things I’m trying very hard to get right is the old Parasites / Dusk spirit, but also bringing something new to the equation.
Either way, progress is good, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be done by the end of this year – if not before!