Off and running... Book 22

Book 22 writing is off and running. I've been dealing with some issues that slowed down the writing for the last week, but the story is going well overall. The slowdown allowed me to consider some aspects of this and give them more thought before writing. I knew the opening scene that I wanted, had come up with it while editing Book 19. It's just what I needed as a way to set up for an angle on character development in this, although originally it was just for my fun, because I wanted to write it.

Figuring out the personality of the new character (from Book 21) is a bit of a challenge. I barely know him, so it's a learning process. That will come out in this book. I intend to take advantage of his presence in this.

I also know what has to happen in this, but that opening scene gave me a springboard for great potential in character development, not only of the new character, but also for L'Ni (like he needs any more development!) and Nya.

In this book, I wanted to reveal a bit more of a particular history that was never fully explained. Not only that, but I also have a few little threads I wanted to pull together in this book. At this point in such a massive series arc, I have a lot of established canon from which to pull. I can no longer make up all new stuff but have pieces to weave from previous books into the current book. As I said, pulling together little threads. And after the jumbled mess (organized mess) that is Book 21, I decided to keep this one linear, although maybe with a couple of short flashbacks just to fill in a couple important pieces of the story.

This series is outlined, but I've left room for changes like characters coming and going. Book 18's farewell to a character wasn't planned, but I made it work and felt it had to be done. I had storylines including that character to the end, but the series arc has been adapted to the change. I also have nearly a dozen extra plots that I could have used, but I knew I didn't want to go past 25 books, so I narrowed the ideas to what I most wanted. I'm now down to the last few of the approved episode plots that need to be in the story to bring the series to a satisfying ending. I hope you've been enjoying the ones that made the cut. They get tweaked to accommodate the changes that happened before they get written. (Look up the history of JMS writing Babylon 5 episodes through all the cast issues and network threats of cancellations and how he had to adapt that as he went and you'll get an idea.)

Right now, Book 22 is currently at 8K words. It's growing, although I wish the writing flowed faster. I have the story outlined--not scene-by-scene but enough to know what needs to be done.

Once this is done, I'll go to work editing Book 20, likely for publishing around late July, give or take a couple weeks. Book 20 explores how Zaer and Shen met and touches on some of their adventures together. I love those two little besties and hope you do too.

Thanks for reading!