Mile Marker #23: On Project Swaps and Magic Twisty Worms

Okay, real talk: Did anyone here know that the fuzzy worm on a string is called a Squirmle? I just fell down a ten-minute internet rabbit hole trying to find the official name for these wonderful creatures, because I thought they had an actual, like, brand name when I was a kid.

But alas—Squirmles. (Christ, I’m gonna giggle every time I type that.)

The reason I bring up our magic twisty worm friends is because I had a completely unhinged dream during a Sunday afternoon nap. And now, like any properly unhinged writer, I’ve psychoanalyzed the entire thing so much that it’s become a fully-formed Book™ in my mind. And I just HAVE to poke it.

I’m not giving up on Finders, just stepping away for a minute to explore this newfangled thing, which I am tentatively placeholdering Skylark but will probably refer to as Squirmle way too often. I switched my Challenge projects around so I can take a hack at this (and earn points for it).

A quick life update: That weird fatigue thing I was dealing with finally turned into actual not-COVID, some really nasty virus that hit most of my family and got me last. I was sick for about a week, then traveling for MAGFest for another week, so I haven’t done any writing. But I’m not feeling discouraged at all — I’m actually feeling really energized and excited to get these worms words in.

I still plan on writing at least one short per month (getting there for January, yikes). I need to hit 40K words by the end of June to “win” the Challenge, and that can be across both of these projects. So! We’ll see where this takes me, huh?

I am famous for jumping ship to a new project faster than you can say, “Ooh, shiny!” but I just have such an intense feeling about this one that I want to get into it right away. Without too many spoilers (or revealing how little I actually know what I’m talking about yet), it’s a cyberpunk-ish, solarpunk-ish anti-capitalist feminist Robin Hood retelling where all the kids have superpowers and, uh, a giant ice worm who may or may not be shaped like a Squirmle destroys an entire high-tech city.

I DREAMED this, y’all!!!

The Power meets Cyberpunk meets The Boys meets, honestly, a little bit of Frozen 2?

Y’all, I don’t know what my subconscious gets up to at night.

But sometimes it’s so unhinged I can’t forget it.

Here we go!

Til next time,
Mags