I’m writing what I think of as “classic fantasy” - though whether others would find that term applicable I do not know.
No dragons, no Tolkien-esque races, but a typical Europe-ish setting, say 18th-ish century without gunpowder, and a fairly hard magic system which is both powerful and self-limiting, with a story of pursuing justice while being pursued by those who would deny it. The theme has ended up being very heavy on friendship and loyalty. It’s not a cozy, but it’s very much not grimdark, either.
I’m a little bit worried that I don’t provide enough possibility of death to any of the main characters via the story as written, but I’m so close to the end that I’m not going to change anything unless I still feel this way during revision.
I find that I don’t enjoy world-building for its own sake, so I tend to incorporate it into a story as I write.
I do this as well, but I take somewhat copious notes regarding the significant details as I create them. It’s too early to tell whether this is going to generate a result I’m happy with or not. 🙂
I was thinking about one of your opening comments before:
I just can’t figure out where to go next. I haven’t quite landed on an idea I can get excited about.
As kind of weird as it is for me to feel this way, I’ve been having random ideas lately that might be a good fit for where you are, depending on if you feel you are done with the entire world or not.
I have found myself daydreaming about doing short stories involving some of the secondary characters and the lives they had/have before they got swept up in the events of my story, or a slightly different idea would be to do short stories that may involve new characters but showcase a particular culture from the world, or an interesting situation to be solved in an interesting way with magic, or etc. For me, I feel like that’s a fairly foolish daydream for the point where I am at this time. But for you, with all that body of work, and looking for something to do - maybe a good fit?
Edit:
A sci-fi/fantasy blend is less complicated than it seems, if it is something you want to give a try in future.
My worry there is that I’m not sure I can learn what I need to in order to write credible sci-fi while also learning to write. But I’ve been a majority-fantasy reader for my entire life, from a very early age. I feel like I’ve got a built in comfort zone on the fantasy side that is allowing me to focus more on learning to write than learning to write fantasy.
additional edits for minor corrections and clarity