This Was Never My Intention...

I want to say right now, this wasn’t my plan when I wrote the first line of The Gouge.  The Gouge was meant to be a stand-alone story, and that is all.  I’m not a big fan of books in a series, mostly because it seems like a gimmick to sell the next book.  Okay, it’s cool, but it really wasn’t what I was aiming for.  When sat down to write The Blue Hole, (again it was meant to also be a stand-alone story) I decided to do something just for fun—I decided to make a character from The Gouge, Detective Jason Burns, make what was supposed to be just a cameo appearance in The Blue Hole.  I chose to do this for two reasons:  One, because I needed a detective for the story in The Blue Hole, and two, I lazily didn’t feel like creating a backstory for a new detective.  Afterall, the work had already been done with Burns’ character and his backstory fit the bill close enough for what I wanted. 

Along the course of writing and finishing The Blue Hole, the book as a whole kind of morphed into a two separate stories—Story 1:  My original idea for The Blue Hole, and Story 2:  What Burns was going through.  Burns’ story actually took on a life of its own—it wasn’t supposed to be so focused on him, but more on the case which related to the original story.  Turns out, I really liked the way the two stories collided with one another. 

However, early on, after the initial release of The Blue Hole, it was pointed out to me that there was some confusion about the end result of Burns’ story in The Blue Hole—it felt incomplete.  The story is all there in the final pages of The Blue Hole—some of it more deductive and assumptive than the rest, but it’s there.  Could I have done a better job showing this?  I’m sure I could have, and I’m sorry I didn’t.  I’m not perfect, but I’m going to work on getting better with that.  To be honest though, there were some aspects of Burns’ story which were far too complicated to wrap up in detail in just one book, and include the rest of the original story in The Blue Hole.  So, naturally, guess what I’ve decided to do. 

The story will be continued in my next book!

That’s right, I’m going to ride that gimmick train!  Again, this was not the plan at the beginning of this story telling journey, but it’s what I’m faced with now.  I’m very excited about this next installment, and I have to say I am more thrilled about the idea of the connecting stories than I probably should be.  So far it’s been fun to write, and I can’t wait to share it with you both! 

So, if one of the two of you reading this are wondering when you can read this next installment, I will have some exciting news very soon!  If you don’t want to miss any news about the next book, it wouldn’t hurt to sign up for my email list on the left sidebar of your screen.  Don’t worry, I don’t send out pointless emails or spam.  It’s not monthly, weekly, or anything regular—to date I’ve sent out two emails to the group.  But if you want to be one of the first to get news on the new book, sign up!  But I might ask you to stay “quiet” about it for a little bit.  Hint?  What hint? 

Keep reading!

MHD