Oh No!

Last week I finished my first beginning to end draft of the novel I have been working on for five years.(Hooray!) Most of the individual chapters have all been edited a time or two though so I think I'll call it draft 1 1/2. At any rate as I sat typing the last few pages, a thrill of disbelief surging through me (five years really is a long time)my brain ran into some serious trouble. Ideas. For a sequel.

I've sworn up and down a thousand times that this book will not have a sequel. I have too many other projects squirming in line for a place on my front burner. Besides, a lot of sequels aren't done very well and suck the joy out of the original book after you read them. I tried to write one once. It didn't work. So when ideas started niggling at my mind awhile back about what happens to some of the characters I thought well, maybe a short story or two that happens in the same world. I could live with that. But here I was typing out the very last pages thinking "Ah, finished at last" (except for you know that whole editing process) and suddenly they aren't just vague ideas anymore. I'm seeing a plot direction, threads that pull together, flashes of dialogue, new sets, a connection to some folk takes I had wanted to novelize years ago but had forgotten about and a whole swirl of colors.

This may sound strange but I know I'm in trouble when I start seeing colors. Every manuscript I've actually finished has a very distinct color I associate with it.

"The Stable" --Chestnut

Sirela --Blue and Silver

Criminal Mastermind --White. With shades of gray.

Ruler of Geal --Amber. In Various shades and textures.

The colors aren't visible in the actual execution of the writing or any kind of theme or anything. They're just somewhere in the back of my mind when I think about that story, holding it together. Probably connected more to tone than theme. . .

So will Ruler of Geal have a sequel? Very possibly. A red and orange sequel,though focusing on a different protagonist altogether. I still say it needs to wait in line behind all my other projects but who knows? It's not like I'm in control here or anything.