Day Six {Genre} and Day Seven {Project}

As you will no doubt realize if you've seen the list of the Fifteen Day Challenge writing questions, I am taking liberties and skipping a couple of them. Day Six has to do with one's "bucket list," but I don't have one and therefore can't answer that; Day Eight is supposed to be a video about books or writing, but the only one I know of is Julian Smith's "I'm Reading a Book" and I can't stand rap. So I'm going with the questions I can answer.

day six: your favorite genre to write in

Earlier this month I wrote a post on diversity in which I pointed out the advantages of both reading and writing in many different genres to stretch the imagination. I am currently reading my father's dissertation on biblical economics, and in learning a little about the basics of Capitalism, it occurred to me that the Division of Labor encouraged by Adam Smith is today as pervasive a concept in the field of arts as it is in the field of physical labor. Authors are expected to hone their skills in one genre - something which, no doubt, earns them prestige and money. I contend, however, that although it might bring financial success and get the writer into the New York Bestseller List, it is damaging to the mind and will eventually doom the author's writing to tedious repetition.

All that to say, I like to write in several different genres. Currently I have two historical fictions and a fantasy; two of my planned novels are a time-traveling novel (science-fantasy) and a light "historical fiction" composed entirely of letters. I also have a historical fiction and a romance bumping around in my head. If forced to choose I would probably say that my favorite genre to write in is historical fiction, since in that one field there are a thousand different possibilities of time, setting, and characters. I like the research that goes into making the past come alive; I like the feeling of having created a story within history and made it authentic. And - well, I just love history and writing is the closest I can get to being there.

day seven: your current writing project

This question is an easy one for me to answer because I have a one-track mind - in this area, at least. Although I will occasionally scribble down a section in my writing notebook for another story, in general when I begin one novel I concentrate my energy on finishing it. I can't write two novels at the same time. Right now I am writing The White Sail's Shaking, my first "sea novel," set during the United States' first war with the Barbary states of North Africa. I always like a good intrigue, and that is what White Sail's is - an inner war among four midshipmen set against the backdrop of their nation's war with Tripoli.

At any level an officer's single goal is to get to the next highest, and Tip Brighton is as eager as his messmates to succeed when he first joins the Enterprize. He has always been a failure - in society as well as in his own family; that's how he ended up being dumped into the navy in the first place. But now that he is there, he means to prove himself...until he finds that the cost of success is higher than he is willing to pay.

I am roughly 90,000 words in to The White Sail's Shaking, placing me at about the two-thirds mark. The writing has been rather slow (I started this novel as my 2010 NaNo) but I am heartily enjoying this novel through all of its chaotic ups and downs and I hope it won't be the last naval fiction that I write.