Back in ye ol' saddle

It's thoroughly shameful that I haven't blogged in over a week. Good gravy, what's wrong with me? Many things, my friends, many things. However, I am back and probably not better than ever. The good news is that I've been busy hatching ideas for my next novel(s). The first one is a true middle grade adventure/fantasy going under the working title of Ghost Fishing. The second is the sequel to Urban Mythos, tentatively entitled Suburban Mythos.

I left open the very real possibility of a sequel in the epilogue of Urban Mythos. My ideas at the time had been somewhat generic - stories about Mythos in an urban center, a suburban center and a rural center.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I began to see more compelling possibilities. I see motivation in concept if not genre by Susan Beth Pfeffer's Last Survivors series. Throw in a little X-Men, and a direction has presented itself to me.

Ghost Fishing, on the other hand, is a boy friendly adventure that starts off in a small Long Island fishing hamlet and wends its way through various strange locations along the Atlantic seaboard. This novel is solid middle grade, and a boy friendly adventure. The voice is going to be interesting - I'm aiming for a fairy-tale-ish feel -- it may take a lot of tweaking until I get it right. For those who've been paying attention, this is the book in which zombie mermaids make an appearance.

Believe it or not, I've been dying to write scenes that take place in winter -- not the cold, dry variety, mind you, but the snowy, holiday-time flavor. I was so enamored of the Godric's Hollow scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I love that feel. The book will also have a number of elements I've never touched before, including divorce/separation, lost faith and trust, as well as mixed marriage -- Dad's Christian, Mom's Jewish. I'm looking forward to touching on the Christmas/Hanukkah thing. This will be especially interesting because the protagonist's family is quite poor.

I don't know that I'll do another Birth of a Novel series, but here's the first draft of the opening line.

The night Jacob Keener first noticed the schooner shimmering in the moonlight on the Great Peconic Bay, his mind was on his father, lost at sea and presumed dead eleven months earlier.

I just wrote the opening scene tonight. It feels great to be writing something new. I love Zydeco, Blaine, Tameina, and all my kids from Urban Mythos, but it's time to hang out with some new characters for a little while.