In case I haven’t said it enough, my latest WIP is a fantasy novel called SHADOWS AND BONES.  I’m now far enough along with it that the story is beginning to take on its own personality.  The characters are beginning to have their own opinions, and the world the story is set in is demanding more history to knit everything together.  Which is great.  With my first novel I realized that it was going to be a completed work when my characters wouldn’t do whatever I wanted them to…their personalities had developed to the point that I had to accommodate them as much as they did me. I’m just about to that point now with some of my characters in SAB.

It was during a recent writing session that an idea for a side story flickered to life.  Then I thought that this idea wasn’t so much a side story as it was an entire story on its own.  But I wasn’t convinced it was an entire novel’s worth of a story.  A tale to be told, yes, but not a novel.  So a short story maybe?

As I worked on it, I came to the conclusion that what I think I have here with this related story is a novella.  So I created a new project in Scrivener and started throwing down notes.  To my delight I found that I was laying down a tale that works out great as a sort of prelude to the events in SHADOWS.  A character in SHADOWS, who plays only a supporting (but critical) role, will be the primary character in this new novella, which I’m tentatively calling THE PRINCE OF GRAVES.

Right now the trick is that now I have two WIPs.  My goal has always been to release SHADOWS AND BONES by December, but I see now that while the draft should be finished, the editing will not be completed.  So now I plan on finishing THE PRINCE OF GRAVES  by the end of October, with a release some time in November.  That will give readers an introduction to the world that these stories play out in, if they’re interested.  But you won’t have to read PRINCE to understand SAB.  I expect to release SAB no later than February, if I have my way.

More to come.  I hope to have a sample of PRINCE out in a week or two.  Until then, happy writing.

WE