New novel, plus Sanctuary 2.0

The world-building process is fascinating.

When I first finished the first draft of 'Sanctuary' six years ago, I knew it wasn't done, which was why I kept it out of everyone's hands, excepting a few beta readers. My feedback from them indicated it really wasn't ready.

So I edited until I couldn't think of anything more to edit, and then I released version 1.0 to Amazon Kindle, and got much better feedback.

But I knew then it still wasn't done.

Because even I don't know the end of the story yet.

We're all still at the beginning of a very long road, and a story that won't let me go. Not til it's done.

So I tried to start writing some short stories to build up my skills and actually get published some other kind of way than self-published, but I didn't have any ideas...none that weren't related to this one.

So I gave up writing short stories for publication, because the magazines wanted very specific kinds of stories, and my brain didn't want to write for their specifications.

It wanted to write these stories.

This is a little disconcerting. I'm a very formulaic, methodical person. My favorite TV show for years and years was 'Home Improvement', because it had a formula, and I knew exactly what was going to happen on each show - do you remember?

Tim gets in trouble - Tim teases Al, the guy who actually knows what he's doing, on his show - Tim gets in more trouble - Neighbor-who-knew-all--and-you-never-saw-his-whole-face advises him with some homegrown wisdom - Tim learns, and somehow gets out of trouble - and the whole cycle starts over again the next episode. I love this kind of stuff.

But my story's not doing that. I don't know what's going to happen. I have an outline, but the outline constantly changes.

Very life-like. Making me feel a little too naked at times. It's nerve-wracking, but it's kind of exciting at the same time.

I'm already committed - can't go back now. Hope you guys are still with me by the time I'm done, but if you fall off at some point, I understand.

These short stories you're reading on this blog are showing me new details I didn't already know. I didn't know what happened at the end of Maggie's story until I wrote it, but when I wrote it, it made perfect sense.

Something else I'm reading is changing some of the details of the original novel, so at some point, I'm going to release Sanctuary, version 2.0. Probably when this whole trilogy is done. Or maybe sooner. I don't know...

I thought the novel was supposed to change the main characters.

I didn't know the novel was going to change, and change me right along with it...