Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom officially launches in less than four months! August 9, to be exact!
I am, of course, ridiculously excited for the launch of the book, but there really and truly isn’t very much for me to do with regards to Dr. Fell between now and then. Except wait. And wait. And wait some more.
There seems to be a lot of waiting in the literary world. Maybe that’s why everyone likes to drink nice, soothing tea all the time.
Anyway.
So while I wait for Dr. Fell to jump into stores and off of shelves (and computer screens, remember, you can pre-order at Amazon today!), I instead concentrate on Book 2!
Except that I’ve already turned in Book 2 (which is not a sequel, but is, instead, the second book in my 2-book deal) and right now I’m waiting (there’s that word again) to get it back from Copyediting. This can take a while, as they often need to replenish the ink in their red pens in order to better underline everything I’ve done wrong.
So I turned my attentions to Book 3 (which is not a sequel to either Dr. Fell or Book 2, but a separate story that is totally awesome and which Awesome Agent will have the task of selling eventually). And finished the first draft. And sent it off to my early readers. And am now… you guessed it… WAITING to hear back from them.
So that’s three books all in the pipeline of being written and/or published, none of which I can actually work on at this point in time. What’s a writer to do?
Write something else.
Now I love new and original ideas. All three of these books are completely different works. My fourth book (which was actually the first one I wrote) is also its own beast. So that’s four books, four worlds. It can get lonely.
So I decided to revisit. I decided to begin work on a sequel.
Of course, the most likely book in need of a sequel at this time is the first one, Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom. I say this simply because it is being published first, and I wanted to revisit Dr. Fell’s world.
It’s a lot of fun.
The thing about writing a sequel is… trying not to make it the same thing. It needs to take the story someplace else. Build on what has come before. Take the reader by surprise while still feeling familiar. A tall order. Made taller still by the fact that the first Dr. Fell wasn’t necessarily written to have sequels. Mind you, I do keep the door open at the end. But this isn’t part one of a three-part trilogy like Lord of the Rings. Neither is this like “The continuing adventures of…” whomever you want. It’s like… you know how Stephen King wrote Dr. Sleep, a sequel to The Shining? The Shining didn’t need a sequel. It was a complete story. But eventually, King wanted to revisit that world and so he wrote a sequel. And it works.
That’s what I need to create. Something that works.
I have LOTS of fun ideas, and am already crafting a lovely, demented little tale. It is just the matter of finding the right way to tease the legion of fans of the first book (oh yes, there will be legions) while also being open to those who, for whatever reason, have not read Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom (they were probably in a coma).
Fingers crossed, but I think I’m on to something. I wanted to start familiar, let old readers think they know where this is going, but then slowly but surely pull the rug out from under them as the true story takes hold, shakes them up, and spits them out.
Yum!
If nothing else, it’s something to do while I wait for August 9…
The official website of author and storyteller David Neilsen! 