3/4 Finished, sort of!

Okay, so as you know I’ve been writing Black Dog stories this year, in between doing other things such as supervising puppies —

— and unexpectedly pausing to write Keraunani and so on.

However, I have been making some progress on the Black Dog stories too. The good news is that this morning I finished the rough draft of the third novella for the upcoming collection. The less-great news is that it’s a pretty rough draft AND it lacks an ending, so “finished” is a pretty strong term.

Endings can be difficult. I’m just not sure how to tie this story up. Two basic choices:

a) Write a couple paragraphs that end the story.

b) Add another couple of scenes and THEN write a couple paragraphs that end the story.

I think I’m going to set this aside for a bit and move on to the 4th story for the collection. I’ll come back and look at the 3rd later, after the back of my brain has had a chance to sort things out.

So far, I have (in the order I wrote them, not the order they’ll be presented):

1) A story from Ethan’s pov that involves those Russian black dogs we met briefly in his previous story. I wrote this one last year or maybe the year before, I forget, but a while anyway. It’s therefore polished up nicely at this point. I think it occurs substantially after Copper Mountain, but definitely before Silver Circle.

I’m really surprised at how Ethan’s character has developed over time. This, I guess, is what people mean when they talk about characters with ideas of their own.

2) A story from Tommy’s pov that involves the younger set of Dimilioc black dogs — Keziah’s sister Amira and Carissa’s brother Nick. They’re going to make quite a team eventually. I’m pretty happy with this story and I think it’s in good shape, close to the final draft.

3) A story from Keziah’s pov that involves the skull that had the demon in it. Remember that? Loose threads there. I picked some of those threads up and added certain other loose threads that used to be unrelated and started to set up certain things for Silver Circle. This story is in pretty rough shape right now. It takes place well before the two above, and would probably be placed first in the collection.

4) Some of the things that happen in Tommy’s story above imply a story that took place off-stage from Thaddeus’ point of view. I don’t know what takes place in that story, so here we are, with the vaguest possible idea and yet I would like to figure something out and write it.

5) A partial story from Grayson’s pov. That one was not working properly and I paused it. I will pick it back up and look at it this week and we’ll just see. It’s strange, because I know the basic things that ought to happen in this story and in fact I need those things to happen in order to set up Silver Circle, yet the story still stalled out. I’m not sure how to cut out most of the beginning scenes and get to the part that’s important, but that’s what I will be thinking about doing. This one ought to be placed late in the collection, preferably last.

So that’s where I am.

At this point, I should probably add, I’m not at all sure this collection will be ready to release by Halloween. (Sorry! I wrote Keraunani!) But, barring unforeseen writing weirdness, it should be ready to release this year, at least.