So I've been intentionally coy on what this story thing I'm working on with Caby is outside of, well, what I've already said. Partially, that was out of practicality. It wasn't really far along enough that I could be or wanted to share much of it with the world.
I just got the first draft of it done before work this afternoon. Just over 4,800 words, spread out over three weeks. The story's done regardless of what happens from here, and Caby draws too much for the illustrations to not follow at roughly the same pace. I intentionally put all else I was up to (including site stuff) on pause more or less to make sure I was focusing all my creative energy on it. Think it's time to share some about it.
Somnolescent has this thing called the Greater Somnolescent Multiverse. I wrote about it for an earlier version of cammy.somnol and that post got rewritten for the blog, so the details are there if you wanna read about it. Essentially, it's this big, undefined void that sits between all our worlds (Pennyverse, Pinede, Wyn, Wisp, Aidew, the real world, etc.). Some characters could survive in the vacuum of the Multiverse, some can't. Some can survive it so well, they know about it and can hop across it at will.
Kevin and Theo's Multiverse Misadventure is what happens when two Multiverse jumpers want to go to another world, but have no idea how to get there. It's two characters, Kevin from Pennyverse, who's a big stupid aardwolf who acts like a big stupid dog instead, and Theophrastus, short Theo, who's Apricot Bay's elderly librarian rabbit. Theo is actually originally from Pinede; in Caerpinwyd, he was a prodigy mage and ravenous bookworm who discovered immortality, then discovered the Multiverse, and set up shop in another world to collect and bring home exotic books.
(Theo on the left, Kevin on the right in the doorway. You'll want to fullview that one. 4.6mb download, careful!)
Over a holiday weekend, Theo decides to bring Kevin home to his big home on the shores of Caerpinwyd, but discovers in having not come home in a few months, he's forgotten where in the Multiverse it's located. Kevin is a stupid dog who was born of Multiverse noise and climbed into Pennyverse, where he was found in a dumpster in The City and had to be told what species he even took shape as.
Theo rested on his back on the island underneath the bubble. Mercifully, he was clothed, but his patience was growing threadbare. "This has been an absolute waste of time!" he growled. "There's more worlds in this Multiverse than I know what to do with."
Kevin stood at his side, having returned from patching another world hole. Theo barely looked in his direction. "Aw, it's here somewhere, Theo," the aardwolf encouraged. "Maybe it'll be the next one we try!"
"I don't even recall which one leads back to Apricot Bay." Theo picked his heavy head off the ground, sitting up with a few spine cracks. "We are pitifully lost."
"I know which one it is!" Kevin put his hand up to point to one before stopping. "It's—um—I think it's that one—"
The bunny sighed. "We will try one more world bubble. If by some occurrence there isn't a large bird trying to eat us in that world, we'll find somewhere to rest for the evening. Maybe we'll return to Apricot Bay before the holiday is through."
It takes them a few tries.
In truth, any time I write something in multiple sittings, it feels disjointed to me. It doesn't help that I really don't map things out too much as I go along. Seriously, parts of that description, I just came up with as I was describing it. I don't think about tone too much, and I'm not good at "zingers"—those moments people really tend to remember from a story. I do plan to rewrite this in a few days. It's good, but I know I can do better. Everyone in the group likes it though, and Caby was especially grateful, since she had no idea what to do for a final school project otherwise.
There's some real neat plans for actually distributing this sucker floating around. We're gonna do a digital copy for all of you to read, and the Somnolians are going to get copies of it mailed to them, since Caby has to print everything out anyway. And of course, her and I will keep copies for ourselves. My work! In print, technically!
Seriously, when the rest of the illustrations are done and it's all assembled, it's gonna be like nothing we've done before. Caby's drawn stuff for my stories before, but not in a while, and never while I've been writing it, so this is both new territory and real exciting territory for me. At the moment, now that the writing is tentatively completed, I'm gonna go back to getting cammy.somnol's aboveground/belowground update ready to go live and probably work on some Quake level designs on paper before I get to mapping. Did I mention I don't plan too much beforehand?
