Today, my short story, Lomea, has been published by Thanet Writers. Find it (for free) here: Lomea on Thanet Writers

I’ll also put it up in my Free Stories section.

It’s only 1,144 words. Not quite flash but very short. Try it. You never know, you might like it.

This feels like a significant story for me. Here’s why.

If you’ve read my blogs before you’ll know I’ve struggled with my first written novel (Waterguard / aka Yamaya) and its currently in my virtual desk drawer – awaiting judgement. Once I’d finished with it, I felt there were some significant issues with it. It needed a rewrite, but I didn’t know quite what to do and was on the cusp of just killing it and moving on. Over Christmas, I decided its fate: I’m going to resurrect it.

My NaNoWriMo piece (Redspot2.0) helped me come to this conclusion. Just as I was writing the penultimate chapter, I came to the conclusion that it could form a fourth part for my putative trilogy of horror – although it would need some significant rework. No problem with that – as it stands, it is a very rough draft anyway.

But more than that, it brought into focus exactly what I need to do to link all four novels AND save Waterguard. 

My workplan is therefore to crack on with book one in the series – now tentatively titled Thanatos so that I at least have a solid draft, then write book two: Lomea, as a draft. I can then do the structural and character changes I need to make to Waterguard (book three) and re-draft RedSpot2.0 as book four.

After I’ve finished with the draft of Lomea I will go back to Thanatos and finish it off. That way, I think I have a pretty strong product line up to go to an agent / publisher with:

Book 1:  Thanatos (polished and ready for submission)
Book 2:  Lomea (drafted, needs polishing)
Book 3:  Waterguard (drafted, needs polishing)
Book 4:  RedSpot2.0 (first draft, needs a lot more work!)

Hopefully, that’s a pretty compelling proposition and I can demonstrate commitment and the ability to write in a sustained way!

Now, the astute will have noticed that Book 2 carries the same title as my just-published short. It’s no coincidence. The short was, in some senses an early trial run of the book. The overall plot arc has been in my mind for some time and it just kind of seeped out. Rest assured, the novel will be a quite different story, but set in the same period.

Probably!

I hope to get all this done by mid to late summer. Optimistic? Maybe. But, I have the advantage now of knowing exactly what to write and what the touchpoints are between each of the books are. Not so easy when they are hundreds of years apart.

Watch this space!
Lee