Friday, June 21, 2013

The Writing of Not Quite Home is Complete!

In October of 1996, teenager Michael Bailey and his family were on their way home from a family vacation when they were run off the road by a semi-truck and perished. The only survivor of the crash was Michael's older brother, who was also driving, and he left Anderson shortly after and never came back.

This was the tragic story of Michael Bailey, a character who was briefly mentioned in my first novel Cicada Song, but don't worry if you haven't read Cicada Song. Michael's fate isn't a spoiler, as it was only a minor plot mentioned in passing. But ever since I first wrote that scene, I wondered about Michael's unfortunate brother who survived and left Anderson to never return... at least through June of 2004 when Cicada Song took place. What happens to a guy who looses his entire family in an accident that he may or may not have caused? Where does he go? How does something like that affect his way of thinking? These questions stayed with me as I went on to other projects. Then I had a rather obvious epiphany. Why don't I find out?

So I spent a year or two playing with story ideas that could expand upon Michael's older brother, each idea building upon the other, and when I had the idea of expanding Cicada Song into a series focusing on the town of Anderson, I knew that this was the next story I wanted to tell. Due to constantly going back and editing Cicada Song and the Adventures of Flitter & Plank, and then writing and editing of From the Ruin of Extinction, I felt like I would never get around to telling the ultimate fate of Micheal's brother, but the time did eventually come and I've been hard at work on it for months. I was saddened when I had to take yet another break when I decided to go ahead and publish From the Ruin of Extinction. And then when I returned to it, I felt like it would never end. But end it did.

As of today, June 21, 2013, the writing portion of Not Quite Home... the story of Michael's brother, now known as Adam Bailey... is complete. There will still be at least two or three rounds of edits that will fine tune his story so that it's as enjoyable to the reader as I can make it, but know that I am extremely proud of how his story has turned out and am glad that I thought to expand upon it. Also, liking how a small plot in Cicada Song grew into the major plot of Not Quite Home, I planted the seeds in Not Quite Home for the next Anderson novel that I'm tentatively calling Janie's Gift. I won't say what those seeds are yet, but you'll find out eventually. It won't be immediate, though. The next book that I've scheduled myself to write is the sequel to the Adventures of Flitter & Plank called the Temptation of Flitter. That'll be a short children's novel, so it won't take long. Then after that is book two of the Refuge series in which From the Ruin of Extinction is book one. That will take quite a bit longer.

But first I must edit. I hate editing. It's no fun, but it must be done. Wish me luck!

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