Well, with The Dagger Rose in its final stages of edits and rewrites, I find myself flush with free time. Of course, since writing dominates my free time, I’m still at it. For those of you eagerly awaiting the sequel to The Iron Crown, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve fully turned my attention to The Pride of Lions.
I’m not officially writing just yet, though. I’ve been spending a great deal of time collecting my thoughts. While the main plot lines are very clear to me, there were a great number of them that I considered exploring. However, after working my way through to what I thought was their conclusion, I found them extraneous, and more of a distraction than a compliment to the overall story. So, the weeding out process has commenced.
It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it’s been down right difficult. I spent an incredibly long time staring at a blank screen, trying to figure out where to start. So, what did I do? I wrote a letter to myself. The first line: “This is killing me.” I figure writing a letter to myself isn’t quite as bad as talking to myself.
Once I started, the rest came easy. I wrote about all the plot lines I was interested in, and how they might fit in, or not fit in, as the case may be. In many cases, I explored several of the plots all the way through to the very end of the Unwilling Kings saga (probably a trilogy), and I’m very excited about where it’s all going.
Even better, I’ve discovered twists and surprises that even I hadn’t anticipated. You’ve heard me mention how my characters “talk to me” before (I assure you, it’s figurative). Throughout the course of this “letter” to myself, they’ve all spoken up, each giving me little insights into their futures I’d not considered before, but all of them leading to what I now know is the logical conclusion of the story.
Of course, realizing the distance I have until reaching the “end” of Kings is daunting as well. Many things have to happen between Pride and the end of the story, and it is a lot of material to cover. My fervent hope is that I can keep you as engaged as I did in Crown (and eventually Dagger). That’s daunting as well. But, I am optimistic (for a change), that I’ll pull it off, and I’m as excited about writing it as I think you are about reading.
