Between novels

October 16, 2014

“What now? Are you working on a second book?” –cshin9

The cardinal rule of writing fiction is to never stop. When one book is finished, you can’t rest on your laurels. While you’re editing that one, get started on the next one so there’s more story coming down the line.

That doesn’t mean the next story needs to be a novel, though.

It always struck me as odd how all the major events in characters’ lives happen at the same time. While the book is going on, major changes happens, and in between the characters are pretty much the same.

But that’s not how life works. I like to write adventures, but sometimes the best adventures don’t take place during major, life-changing events. Sometimes the smaller adventures are just as fun. So I’m taking a page from Full Metal Panic! author Gatoh Shoji, and doing some Fumoffu of my own.

In between novels, I plan to release short stories set in the same world and with the same characters as my novels. These will be the smaller adventures, exploring the world, fleshing out the characters, and moving the plot along incrementally. They won’t be fluff, they’ll just be the fun stories that happen to take less time to tell, but are worth telling even so.

The best thing for you? Some of these will be free! My plan is to write a few in between the first and second full-length novels, some of which I’ll release for free on my site, and some of which will only be found in a compilation volume I’ll put together later on. So if you enjoy my first book, there will be the occasional free story to tide you over into the next one drops.

That’s what I’m working on now. I think the first book is great, but the stories that come after it will be a lot of fun as well. I’m excited to show you both.