Hi, readers! It's been way too long since I last posted here. But I'm back again to tell you that Two-tone Tales is still alive, update you on what's been happening in the meantime, and let you know what's in store in the near future.
So...the last post here was in July. To be honest, the spring in which I began creating this blog was full of major ups and downs that I couldn't have prepared for. My last semester of my master's certificate program took up a lot of energy. I was involved in an ESL internship that was very intensive in many ways. I also admittedly got sidetracked by novel-length projects I wanted to work on. And on top of all that, I faced a major shift in my mental health. All of that combined into a perfect storm that knocked me off balance quite a few times and now, as we're nearing the end of 2025, it looks like my dream of sharing more writing with you didn't quite go as planned.
But 2025 isn't over yet. And as I've been looking after my mental health and reconfiguring my writing priorities, I'm back on track to fulfill my promise. I'd like to let you in on what that'll mean.
In working on novel-length projects this year, I both saw improvement in my writing and I also drove myself close to the brink of burnout. Fewer things help me out of burnout like working on A) smaller projects and B) new/different ideas. Now, obviously my unfinished In the Midst series with author's notes hasn't concluded yet. That will continue to be serialized here until the final installment I wrote years ago. I also want to get back to the rough, experimental short works that I played around with earlier this year. And while I won't promise anything, I'm interested in seeing if I could potentially bring my Salem story to life here starting in 2026.
But my most exciting announcement for Two-tone Tales is this: once I've spent enough time developing characters, setting up adequate worldbuilding, and writing up a minimal outline, I'm going to share a sci-fi series with you!
Now, all kinds of speculative fiction appeal to me. Sci-fi, however, is one I have a complicated dynamic with. The sci-fi I tend to gravitate towards is on the softer side - think Star Trek: Next Generation, Doctor Who, the Portal game series, etc. I'm not much for hard sci-fi (setting everything up to be as scientifically realistic as possible), and when I think about writing any kind of sci-fi myself, I get intimidated by the kind of work needed to render a believable yet engaging world. Which is kind of funny, because one of my earliest attempts at writing a book was an unfinished story I wrote in my teens about a crew of runaway androids.
Now, however, I have an idea that just won't let go of me. It involves things like androids, time paradoxes, modified humans (with what you could call superpowers), and memory extraction/erasure. I'm still early in the development of this, so I don't have a premise or even a one-sentence plot summary to share. But there's a ragtag crew, hidden identities, lost pasts, adventures, and resisting the powerful for the good of all. And I really want to write it.
Here's the thing. If I was working on this like one of my novel-length projects, there'd be (at least) a month's worth of development and outlining before I even drafted. And then, I'd work on it over and over until it was good enough. But this time...I want to do something different. Working on a new genre is a learning experience - one I want you to be part of. I've shared rough, unrevised works here before. I've done this both as a way to encourage myself to just try things with courage and as a way to help aspiring writers see the drafting phase of writing in real time.
So - I'm only going to develop this story so I have enough information to start writing with (characters, world, other useful info). I will create a rough outline to get the story going, but I won't outline the entire plot of the whole story. This sci-fi series is going to be something you and I discover together as it is written. It's meant to be rough, imperfect in places, but also mostly unplanned. Because sometimes the most interesting parts of a story are the parts we couldn't have prepared for. For you readers and writers alike, this'll be a chance to see the pros, cons, and workarounds of making things up as you go.
I'll need a couple weeks or more to get all I need figured out. But once I do, it's take-off time. I'm excited to see what this series becomes & I'll be very interested in your thoughts, too!
With that, that's all I have for updates at the moment. Keep your ears and eyes open for new short works and for the beginning of the upcoming sci-fi series. If you follow me on Instagram (@madeleinefmilligan), I'll make a post when the first part of this series is available.
Thanks for sticking around even in the silent period - I'm looking forward to sharing stories with you again!
~ Madeleine
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