So, last week I re-read the 100 pp of my current WIP (The White Road of the Moon, a YA for Knopf) and started moving ahead with it and it was all going fine. In fact, I started to see how I might be able to avoid dividing the pov, which would be excellent, since the book is complicated enough without that and I’m afraid it’s going to way overshoot the length I would prefer and sticking to just one pov would definitely be better. If I do that, it will be only the second book ever that I’ve written with a single pov protagonist. Interesting if that is starting to get easier and more natural for me.
Anyway, out of the blue I suddenly had this great idea for a story set after Pure Magic and before the third book (Shadow Twin), with Ethan as the pov character — Ethan kind of gets short shrift in the novels — so I thought what the heck, that wouldn’t take long. So I wrote that and it didn’t take long, two days or so, and all was well. The story actually sets up an important detail for Shadow Twin and clarifies a plot issue that was bothering me.
But then I unexpectedly had a serious urge to write a story set AFTER Shadow Twin — which, remember, isn’t written yet, so it is a bit ridiculous to mess with short stories set after that. Yet . . . I’ve had that story in my head for a while and it was kind of getting obtrusive. This is in spite of the fact that I actually am kind of keen on my official WIP and was not trying to avoid it.
FINE, I said, IT WON’T TAKE LONG. Well, that short story turned into a novella. 58 pages, a hair over 18,000 words. The pov is divided between Ezekiel and a character you haven’t met yet. Took four days (which is pretty darn good for 58 pp, in fact).
Now. Now I am going back to The White Road.
Incidentally, the cover artist says she is pretty sure she can finish the cover for Pure Magic this month. I sure hope so. Next time I am going to want a firm delivery date in the contract.
Please Feel Free to Share:
Have you come up with short fiction ideas before (and suppressed them), or is this specific to the Black Dog universe? Because they’ve been cropping up often often enough there that I think we have to call it an established pattern.
No, I only seem to get short story ideas in the Black Dog universe, period. I think they must be spinning off as scenes-connected-to-a-larger-whole and working differently in my head than other, non-connected short stories.