I’ve just submitted the last two sections of Path of Lyssa to the site here, and also to LitEro where all this stuff also goes, and phew! I’m beat!
This has been the first time that I’ve successfully written 50,000 words over the course of November. Part of that comes down to simple confidence. I’ve had ideas on other years, but they have never managed to make it onto the page. Obviously, time is another factor. Having this month where the baby is keeping me up at strange hours, and I have little else to do save tend to her many whims, has given me a bit of flexibility to write how I want. Once December starts and I head back to work, I may not be able to churn out another 50k just like that.
It’s exhausting! Having a time limit has made me appreciate things like word count a lot more, where before I was happy to type away until I thought a thing was done. I couldn’t take my time with Path of Lyssa, so I had to make sure I prioritised the core elements of the story. You may think that I didn’t do that. But this is a weird genre to write in, since I’ve found that expectations around content vary so wildly. It works for me.
I’m happy with how Path of Lyssa turned out. Just like Lonely Ship, it’s a fantastical exploration of sex as both a blessing and a curse. I’ve certainly had both experiences in my time (though never anything like what happens in the stuff I write, don’t call the police) and weighing those up into something I can understand for myself is a challenge that is ongoing. The Christian leaders of my past would undoubtedly come to conclusions that are different to the ones that I have. But I think God made sex so cool because it is a good thing. It can be used incorrectly, just like anything in creation. But it shouldn’t be shied away from. Path of Lyssa and Lonely Ship both are how I try to figure out how to do that.
Having said that, yikes! I pushed at some boundaries in this story! Chapters three and five (the ones with content warnings) really made me sit back and think. I hovered over the delete key more than once. Hopefully I have learned about myself by testing my mettle with this, and I haven’t just consigned myself to deeper depths of degeneracy…
Other references to acknowledge are shows like KonoSuba and Interspecies Reviewers. Both are degenerate classics of anime that explore creatures like Lyssa who have a selfish need to feed on mortals, and both have those creatures living peacefully alongside their prey. I’ve also been playing a lot of Elin lately, which lets you play a succubus and build a brothel if you feel like it. It’s wild! And the nature of Lyssa’s need mirrors that of the Runechildren in Lonely Ship, so those references are still in play.
Next steps, then. Pass 2 of editing is done, which is what you can read on the site. Pass 3 comes when I sit down and read this all out loud to my wife. Will let you know if she files for divorce. I’ll make spot changes and then go right back to the start, read it all over again for pass 4. Then I’m thinking I’ll format Lyssa into an epub and throw it up for free on the usual sites (ie. not Amazon, since they don’t like me handing stuff out gratis without exclusivity). I’ll need to make a cover…
The ending does come off a little ambiguous, so you may be wondering about sequels. I’m not planning on it, I like the openness of the place we end up in at the end of chapter six. And there’s also the thing with the prioritisation – the story is about Lyssa recovering her memories and defeating her past, and that’s done now. The rest of it needs to be able to wait. I may do a followup next year for November, if I can think of a good reason to. If I do, I already know that it’ll be called Crown of Lyssa.
And some time in the next week, I need to polish up the December short story! I like it, I do a thing with tense that has pushed my skills to their limits! Watch this space.
That’s it. I hope you got even a little out of Lyssa’s journey, like I did. Thanks for reading!
pathoflyssa
Ewan Stone 
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