They’re just figments, but they’re mine. And I love the places they take me.


Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.


Tell us what you love the most about your work in progress.


Which one?

I currently have eight half-finished stories, seven of them are sequels and one is a new idea. I tend to do a bit on one of them, then swap projects and work on another for a while.

There are Space Opera, Steampunk and Cozy crime stories in there, all adding to series that I’ve already written. Should I get bored, there are also a couple of completed short stories that could be expanded. The new idea is more fantasy than anything else, which is something that I’ve never written before.


And I love them all.


Whether it’s the antics of Andorra Pett, the clumsiest detective in the Solar System, or the angst-ridden adventures of Dave Travise, Galactic Trader, they all hold a place in my heart.

Then there are the Steampunk tales of Norlandia. My alternative country is filled with intricate machinery powered by steam and clockwork. A place with dashing heroes, dastardly villains and a good cup of tea (as well as the odd Dragon). And there is the Balcom Dynasty, a tale of intrigue and power played out over a multitude of worlds.


That’s just scratching the surface of what’s going on in my mind.


Once you enter into the worlds of your imagination, the boundaries expand, you quickly realise that there are no limits to where you can go and who you can meet.

Once I have met the characters and given them life on the page, they become friends and I get as wrapped up in their triumph and failure as I do with the exploits of my own family.


I love the way that my stories mimic life today, in another setting. If I can let you into a secret, life in the future will not be greatly different to life today. We will carry all our emotions, all our vices and all our petty squabbles into the Galaxy (or even into a parallel universe) with us. The technology of the future may well be advanced, although to be honest, we could live on another world, even a hostile one, with what we have today. All we really lack are a place to go and a means to get there. I’m sure that, if we found the place, we would soon discover the means. Especially if we had a reason, like the knowledge of an imminent disaster on this planet.


Another thing I love is the process of creation, whether it’s another world, another way of life or another set of people and their adventures. To see these things taking place in my head and put them down on a page gives me a feeling that is indescribable (other authors will know what I mean). There is a sense of accomplishment, even of omnipotence, although all I’m doing is copying what I see in my head. To go with that joy, there’s sometimes a terrible sadness, when a person has no more part to play and departs the scene, in one way or another.


So the answer is that I love all of my writing, whichever part of it I might be working on.


Let me know what you think about this week’s subject.

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Now see what the other blogs in this hop have to say by clicking below.

Check out the other great blogs here.


While you’re here, you might be interested in these Bookfunnel promos. There’s one for September’s new releases, including The Hitman and the Thief,

and another including my Dual-time thriller Life and Other Dreams.

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7 Responses

  1. P.J. MacLayne

    It drives me nuts to work on more than one writing project at a time. I’m a very linear person, and the switching back and forth stuff doesn’t work for me.

    • Richard Dee

      The problem I have is with whoever is dictating the story to me. They’re all very fickle and will wander off without warning, leaving me in limbo. Then, out of the blue, another narrator will appear and start another story. I have no choice but to go with the flow.

  2. robertawrites235681907

    You are very agile minded, Richard. I generally only work on one book at a time as it absorbs my whole mind. I can put it aside to write the odd short story but only if that story is for a specific purpose like an anthology.

    • Richard Dee

      To be honest, it can be very frustrating, jumping from project to project because you can’t think of what to write next. It might be a long wait for inspiration to return, just when things were getting interesting.

  3. Lela Markham

    I also swap between projects. I tend to have a primary project that is the next one to be published and it gets most of my attention. But then I have a secondary project that will be published after that one and it’s the first one I go to if I start to get bored with my primary project. Then the tertiary project that will be published some day gets some attention if I’m really bored. And a fourth that I’m noodling with is just hanging out there to be played with when I have time. And the third book in Daermad Cycle — yeah, I need to get back to that.

    And, I absolutely agree with you about the future. Sure, we’ll advance technology, but people will remain the same and our basic nature will go with us to the stars. I think that’s a good thing — most of the time.

    • Richard Dee

      I started out with one, but every story I finished, I had more ideas for how it could continue, almost as soon as I had typed the end. Sequels, prequels and spinoffs. Now the spinoffs are generating sequels of their own!!

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