Breaking Ground on Twenty-One Palaces

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TL:DR: On Saturday the 13th, a little more than a week ago, I created a new file in Scrivener called Twenty-One Palaces. Work on the last book in the Twenty Palaces series is ongoing.

Longer version: Earlier this month, I was struggling through my newest effort, a straight horror novel partly inspired by the work of Stephen King, and I hit a sequence in the novel that came alive for me as I wrote it. 

It was a scary scene with a lot of personal consequences and conflicts for the POV character. It had a lot of juice, if you don’t mind me using that phrase. It felt good to be writing it, in fact. 

Then the scene was finished and I moved on to other parts of the story. Writing went back to being a slog. 

It was then that I realized that the whole fucking book was supposed to feel that way. It was supposed to give me goosebumps while I was writing it, as my previous books did. 

Which meant I had to admit that this most recent book didn’t work. I closed the file and tried to figure out what to do. Toss it and start the story over from scratch again? Jump into yet another new book that has been tickling at the back of my mind? Return to a previous half-completed manuscript and get that ready to send out? 

I have a few of those. There’s a book that was meant to be a mix of cosmic horror and conspiracy thriller, except on a very small scale. (Does it sound weird to talk about small scale cosmic horror? To talk about small scale conspiracy thriller? Yes. Yes, it does.) There’s also a straight mystery novel that didn’t quite come together the way I would have liked. And, going way back before I even thought about starting The Great Way trilogy, there was a fantasy/police procedural set in a Rome-like city where humans are second-class citizens under the rule of a coalition of non-human beings. 

None of those choices were right. The mystery novel felt alive in the way I need a book to feel alive, but not in the first few chapters. The others would need even more work.

As for starting a third brand new book, that seemed like a terrible idea. It would mean starting from scratch and putting the often-promised finale for Ray and Annalise off even longer. 

The most sensible choice was to put everything aside and finish the 20P books before I died. Only problem: I had no idea how to end the series. I knew the enemy Ray and Annalise would have to contend with. I knew the setting. But I had no idea how I was going to defeat that enemy in that setting. 

On the thirteenth, I sat down to try to work out the details. Today, on the 22nd of July, I feel confident enough in the progress of this rough outline that I can announce it. 

The final book in the Twenty Palaces series is underway. 

Thank you all for your patience. 

That includes anyone who is expecting an email from me or whatever. I’m behind on everything. Sorry.