New Connections

I’m starting to understand why writers like working on series with the same characters, rather than new characters and settings with each book. Working on SUNRISING, the sequel to my first novel, I’m discovering connections among the characters that I had not explored in the first book.

Those connections are leading to new stories that won’t fit in the sequel, so I’m now writing some short stories to explore those connections. Perhaps these stories will become a third book, what I’m seeing as a prologue to the first book!

This writing is so much fun, I can’t tell you. Especially during this stay at home phase of our lives, I can create new world that just did not occur to me when I was just starting to write novels. Whether anyone reads this work or not, I’m loving the process itself. For now, that’s enough satisfaction.

I’m finding out so much about these characters. It’s feel like I’m coloring in all the details and filling in the background in a painting that until now was only figures of people, and crudely drawn figures at that. Now it feels like they’re living in settings that are more fully realized, with towns and landscapes and costumes, more like detailed portraits rather than rough sketches.