by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
At the moment, all I know about the second novel is it’s very important to the series and it’s about an abducted baby. Otherwise, everything is very much in flux. But given how huge this project is, I have a lot of room to flex my creative vision in the context of a broader universe and canon.
While I plan on using the latter part of August to flesh out the outlines of the five remaining novels, at the moment, I’m focused on the second novel. The second novel shows how the events of the first novel are beginning to change the community I’ve come up with.
It’s fun for me, the writer, because I have a huge, established canon to work with and all I have to do is figure out how to use the already existing characters in new ways. And it’s fun to think about how readers — who hopefully will be fans of the series by this point — will get an update on what their favorite characters are up to.
This six novel project is actual two trilogies, at least in my minds eye. Something similar happen to me when I tried to write a scifi book about First Contact. By the time I decided to work on a thriller instead, I had come up with three trilogies. It must be my nature to be really creatively ambitious.
Anyway, the key to finishing all of this is to not get burnt out and to not get overwhelmed. I have to stay focused and keep my eyes on the prize — writing four novels that so lay out how the community I’ve come up with got so fucked up that it makes total sense to the reader. In fact, it will be something of a treat for people who have been fans of the series from the beginning.
Did I mention I have a huge ego?
But this second novel is very, very important because it gives an important character in the series the motivation to do something that is very, very important to the overall canon. Wish me luck figuring out how to flesh the story out.
It’s slowly beginning to come to me, I think.
