A(nother) New Novel

In today’s Journal

* A Weird Thing
* A(nother) New Novel
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A Weird Thing

I received a TalkWalker Alert for my name awhile back. It revealed my books are for sale through Saxo, advertised as the largest Danish book distributor. I never knew. Did any of you know about Saxo?

To see the shop, click here. Interesting.

You can set up your own alerts via TalkWalker.com. I have alerts set for my name as well as for StoneThread Publishing and a couple of others. Sometimes they come in handy.

A(nother) New Novel

Yesterday morning as I was at my desk in the Hovel and smack in the middle of filing the Journal for the day, an owl hooted outside my window.

Remember when I said you can get story ideas anywhere?

I abandoned the Journal just long enough to turn to my writing ‘puter, open it, open a new document, and write “When the Owl Calls” across the top of the page.

Then I turned back to my business computer and finished filing the Journal.

I had to take a necessary trip up to the house, and on my return to the Hovel I had to take my morning dose of meds.

Well, you know I often say when you have an idea, Write It Right Now, right?

So as soon as I put the meds box away, I turned back to the writing ‘puter and started an opening for a brand new novel.

Way back in July 2015, I started writing what would eventually become Book 7 in the Wes Crowley saga: The Marshal of Agua Perlado. It would be the first sequel to the original Wes Crowley trilogy.

But a few thousand words in, Wes tugged on my sleeve and said, “Hey, don’t you wanna know what happened at the start?”

I did, so I abandoned The Marshal of Agua Perlado and started writing the first of three prequels to the original trilogy, Rise of a Warrior. Then I wrote the next two prequels: Comanche Fire and Wes Crowley: Texas Ranger.

When the dust finally cleared from all that, I went back to write the rest of The Marshal of Agua Perlado.

Now that sort of thing has happened again. At a little over 7,000 words of Blackwell Ops 25 (and just after finally I learned the name of the POV character, Rafe Andersen) that owl hooted outside my window.

I knew immediately who the POV character for the new story is, and I know it will be a sequel to my novel Jonah Peach, which I wrote back in December 2019. That’s all I know about it.

So although Blackwell Ops 25 just busted loose and is going really well, I’ll set it aside for now and write When the Owl Calls. When I resume BO-25, I’ll put it in Numbers below again.

Why? Because I trust my characters, and Hiram Peach (yes, the son of Jonah) is considerably more insistent about getting his story down than Rafe Andersen is about telling his.

Rafe is laid back, especially considering his job as an operative for Blackwell Ops. He’s in no great rush. When I told him my dilemma—that I had something else to do for the next couple of weeks—he only grinned and wagged a hand at me. “Go ahead. I’ll be here.”

So I will. And I can hardly wait. (grin)

As I wrote yesterday, “Wonderfully exciting, isn’t it? This writing thing we’ve chosen to do?”

Always trust your characters, folks. They won’t steer you wrong.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Comment on About My Openings Critique You want to read this. It’s an informative, ringing endorsement.

2nd Day Licensing Expo

The Numbers

The Journal……………………………… 610

Writing of When the Owl Calls (novel)

Day 1…… 1884 words. To date…… 1884

Fiction for May…………………….….… 19114
Fiction for 2024…………………………. 322899
Fiction since October 1………………… 625957
Nonfiction for May……………………… 20700
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 175040
2024 consumable words……………… 497939

2024 Novels to Date……………………… 8
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 1
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 90
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 239
Short story collections…………………… 29

Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies, and they will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.

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