It's been a while since I posted anything in this blog and I feel badly about it, but I've been working on the sequel and trying to get things done in my real life as well. I've been bogged down in the story because I'm not sure where I want it to go and if I follow the dictates of conscience, the sequel will become longer than the original. I don't want it to become a bloated corpse, stinking of putrifaction, like the corpses that must have been floating in the gulf after the polar shift. If I allow it to become too long, I fear that it will become simply a fat imitation of the original story, without the energy to move itself beyond being published.
The characters, though interesting, are beginning to pall on me and if I'm not careful, will devolve into soap-opera-like cut-outs. And that's not what I want. I want them to be vital and alive. I want them to jump off the page, slap the reader across the face and urge them into action! Anything less would be an insult to the reader.
I've written Paget Redpath as a harder character in the beginning of the story but she is getting softer with the advent of her sister Julia. I have written John Sheaves and his wife, Beth, as more realistic than previously and Matt Lyndon has become a father figure for John. Matt continues to be a wild-card in the story and anytime I want to envision him, all I have to do is remember some of the truly humorous people I've known. He is a combination of several of them, and will continue to be so.
At present I have over 65,000 words written in the sequel and many Kindle authors would think that is enough. (Can you imagine? A lot of them have the gall to charge $3, or even $5 for a single short story!) However, I believe that in order not to cheapen my product, I must make my stories the same length that people have come to expect from a dead-tree book.
Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Congruencies, Taken Apart and others.
Available on Kindle
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