Listening to someone talk at a con panel once: “never let your world building get in the way of telling the story.” This novel (should I ever finish it) is testament to that truth. It began as backstory for an online game character. I thought, what if JD meets some old alien martial arts teacher who refuses to speak English? (Standard, Common, whatever.) My next realization was that, well, if they don’t, what do they speak?
The character never got played, but I couldn’t let go of the story. Or the language, to be honest. This led to conlanging and a lot of years trying to learn things about language that I never knew. I keep fiddling with it. And not writing.
(OK, and writing for a weekly D&D game hasn’t helped either, although we’re every other week now, so I have a shot at getting back to this.)
Then there’s JD’s voice and the decision to make her Latina, which I do with much trepidation. Any Latina readers who want to rip me up over that are welcome to. I’d like to hang onto that aspect of the character, but have no desire to offend. Actually, any help making her true to life would be welcome.