by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Now that the cornerstone of this six novel project is pretty much laid, I find myself thinking about the other novels in the series — specifically, book two. While I am going to tinker some with the other books when I think of it, book two is now the novel that I find myself really focused on.
All I know about book two is that it takes place in the summer of 1995 and it deals with an abducted baby. I have some other vague ideas about the alliances being very different in the second novel, but pretty much the only concrete thing I have in my mind is the ending. The end of the second book sets up the events of the third novel.
Now, I continue to wonder if I even need to write so many novels in the first place. Whenever I do mull doing this, however, I immediately dig in my heels and am again determined to tell six novels set over the course of 25 years. I just find the idea of giving the audience a macro arc of characters that they can invest in too appealing.
I am well aware of how ambitious six novels are. It has taken me years and years to get where I am with the first novel. The belief is, of course, that by I’ve learned enough about how to write a novel that the other novels will go a lot faster.
What’s more, I have put in a lot — A LOT — of work with the last two novels to the point that when I get around to really focusing on them, they SHOULD go really fast. The key thing I have to worry about is not only how old I am, but what I am going to do about manuscript consultants.
They have consistently proven to think I’m a drunk crank not worthy of their time. And, what’s more, I’m very, very poor these days so…I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting to see how far I can get on my own before I grow desperate enough to risk trying to get a snooty manuscript consultant to help me with the second novel.
