A Story That Isn't, and a Story That Had To Be

Last Tuesday I wound up plotting an entire story that I don't intend to actually write.

It was like this:  Having decided to place a version of Annie Two in the fairyland of Amethyst (named Annie Amethyst; she's an automaton rather than a computer program), and having decided to place a Steampunk version of a Society of Intergalactic Space Babes space station in orbit over the planet/fairyland, I realized by the next morning that I really need to know why these things exist.  There had to be a reason!  There was some big adventure involving Circuit Girl and F8Wasp that I knew nothing about.

So I wrote up several paragraphs about an invasion of the fairyland of Amethyst from space, by some kind of space troll-like creatures named Space Thralls.  The Necromancer King calls on Circuit Girl for help (she's the sister of Princess Amethyst after all).  She brings along several members of the New League of Two-Fisted Justice -- Geothermal Jenny, Sister Fryer, Girlbot 9000, Unpossible Girl, and Grandpa Anarchy's sidekick F8Wasp.  She also calls on the aid of Jennie Nova, Llahna and the Space Babes.  After they repell the invasion, they create Annie Amethyst to aid the Necromancer King, and Valerie 1895 (a Steampunk automaton version of Valerie 9000, the S.I.S.B. A.I.)   They leave a Steampunk space station in orbit over the planet, with six Steampunk space ships to patrol the air space for any new intruders or problems.

I also added a human girl named Sandra Dorsey to help run the spaceship.  She arrived in Amethyst by balloon and apparently stayed.

All of this was my "story that wasn't" although it could be argued that it's at least two stories -- one about the girl Sandra Dorsey.  In any event, this was even more world building for my story.  Naturally I sometimes reference events that I never actually write about, and this was one that I didn't intend to write (although having plotted out the whole thing, I kind of felt like maybe I should be writing about it).

After that I went back to the story I've been working on for two weeks about Hellfire Lass's magic ring.  Thursday and Friday I got one or two more scenes written.  The following Monday I wrote a lot more, and by Tuesday I had a completed story that involved quite an adventure in Amethyst, which was nothing like what I had originally set out to write.  The Ring of Hanubatum is over 8,000 words, and I probably wrote twice that much in backstory and scenes that I didn't use.  Hopefully all of that helped make the story feel more solid/grounded/detailed, whatever.  A lot of things didn't get explained even though I'd worked out what the explanation was.

Wednesday I set out to fix up my world building notes and save them as a separate file that I could consult later.  However, this morphed into a brand new project, to do a complete writeup on everything I know so far about the fairyland of Amethyst.  (And while we're at it, I would include any other related fairyland worlds I've created or mentioned).

There's a lot to cover -- a  three-part story Amethyst Road, a novella-length sequel in three parts, Return to Amethyst, a short story Space Kraken, another short side story Fairyland Physics, the new story The Ring of Hanubatum, and side stories involving other fantasy fairyland worlds -- Vows, X Chromosome, Fate Maid to Order, and the novella-length Oz on the Half-Shell (which is not quite finished).

As part of the process of detailing the world, I happened to think:  doesn't Princess Amethyst need a maid to care for him?  The palace is run by zombies, and the only other humans are the king, his musicians, and the fry cook.  A young boy princess would get lonely, and having zombies dress you and launder your clothing can't really work that well.

So I wrote up a treatment for Millie the Maid, the human who serves the princess.  But by the time I was done, I realized that this, too, was an unwritten story -- and one that wasn't too ambitious so I could actually write it.  So that's what I did today (Thursday).  I worked most of the day on a short story called Secret Millicent.  It's nearly done, and it occurs to me that it's not the sort of story most people might be interested in, as it deals with characters rarely seen.  But I think I like it, even though it's not quite done yet.  ^_^

This will be my second story of the week, but I'm not sure that helps me -- it may be a story I don't want to publish on the web.  Meanwhile, my writeup on the fairylands needs to be finished...