New Beginnings

The blog was silent this weekend for a couple of reasons. The main one was the weather. DFW and the surrounding area had not only rain — lots and lots of rain — this weekend but high winds and, in some areas, tornadoes. My thoughts and prayers are will all those in Van Zandt County, Denton County and the other areas where so much damage was done. As for here, well, there is one bedroom and bathroom that flood when we get a large amount of rain at once. Add in the fact that we have had multiple hard rains over the last few days and we have flooded three times so far in the last four days. That means my wet-vac has been well used as have the fans and other equipment used to try to dry out carpet, concrete, sheetrock and baseboards. It also means my allergies and asthma have been kicking up. So, there was no blog and very little writing done this weekend.

But, there is one thing physical labor does for me and that is it lets my mind wander while I am busy doing something else. That is a good thing because it means Myrtle the Muse has time to figure out what needs to happen with which project. The really good part of this is that I now have the opening — after three failed tries — to Daggar of Elanna, the sequel to Sword of Arelion (Sword of the Gods Book 1), It also means I know what needs to be done in Nocturnal Challenge, the follow-up to Nocturnal Interlude (Nocturnal Lives Book 3). I have a feeling that by the time I start putting the room back together — painting and stuff like that will have to wait until the weekend — I will have the plot worked out for Honor from Ashes, the sequel to Duty from Ashes (Honor and Duty Book 2). Those are all good things.

The bad thing is that I also know pretty much where Skeletons in the Close is going. The reason this is a bad thing is that I cannot, absolutely CANNOT, even think about that book while writing anything else. The main character’s voice is so strong and loud and Southern that, if I were to try working on it while doing another project, that other project would wind up sounding like it had come straight out of a haunted version of Gone With the Wind — modern day version, of course.

So that brings me back to beginnings. As I said earlier, I had started Dagger of Elanna. I even know the basic plot. I’ve talked a little of it out with one of my first readers. The problem was actually starting the book in the right place. With it being the second book in a series — and one which builds on what happened in Sword of Arelion (Sword of the Gods Book 1), it is important that I set things up so that those who haven’t read the first book can still figure out what’s going on. On the other hand, I don’t want to bore those who have read Sword by rehashing the events of that first book. And, no, I don’t do prologues or introductions. My experience is that most readers at best skim them. so the trick is to start the story and carefully drop the background in without info dumping on a huge scale.

I think I have that figured out now and hope to see it start to flow when I start writing in a few minutes (more coffee will be needed as will stepping away from the computer for a few minutes to clear my head. This is my second blog post this morning.) So, fingers crossed that this takes off the way I think it will. If it does, then I should have the rough draft finished by the end of the month — knock on wood. The others should be done shortly after that. Knock on wood again.

In the meantime, I have blogged over at According to Hoyt this morning. I’ll post a link once the piece goes live there.
And, if you are of a mind to support the kibble fund to keep Demon Kat and his counterpart, Thena, Queen of the Universe, fed and happy — well, as happy as any cat can be when there is a dog in the house — check out Sword of Arelion and my other titles. You can find a list of all my books at my author page on Amazon.

Thanks!

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