Confluence

Sometimes in the act of writing a book, unusual creative events occur that have no easy explanation. Such is the case with the trilogy of novels I'm currently working on. The first novel, Race the Sky, is something I've been working on for close to fifteen years. The second book, The Hammer of Amalynth, was originally a novel about relativism and the third book, The Fire and the Anvil, started out as a short story collection. Each book had its own individual problems that seemed insurmountable at the time.

But then something funny happened. One night I decided to experiment and I put all three ideas "side by side". Over the course of an hour, many of the initial problems disappeared and plot elements (and characters) from the individual books started solving the problems in the other books. The third book turned into a novel and the Secrets of the Elements trilogy was born.

In my previous post, I listed the probable back cover copy for the next novel, Race the Sky. Like any first book in a series, there is some setting up of larger narrative arcs and several of the characters in this novel will return for the other two. All three books will follow John Sayers (a stormchaser) and Madeline Kinney (a cult researcher). In the second and third books, Dr. Ferganut will join them (from the short stories Dust in the Whirlwind and Firebugs). At that point, the Dust in the Whirlwind and Firebugs will takes on whole new meanings.

More updates will be coming shortly. Race the Sky should be available sometime in January of 2016.