In early 2017, heck maybe even late 2016, I was at a friend's house and they had just finished reading G581: The Departure.
"I can't wait to find out what happens next!"
"Next?" I asked, blinking in surprise.
"Well, yeah, I mean, there's going to be another book, right?"
"I hadn't really thought that far ahead."
My friend stared at me, mouth agape. "But... but it's a cliffhanger!"
"It is?"
"Yeah! The last line, "Nathan Zradce opened his eyes."
Now, see, this is why I truly have to wonder if I'm somewhere on the spectrum. Because to me, that's a perfectly fine ending for the book. Books don't always have happy endings, sometimes they have twists, weird ones, so why not a weird little twist right at the end?
It turns out a lot is wrong with leaving any kind of cliffhanger in a book if you haven't actively planned out another book. At least, according to my readers. Sorry, readers, I promise to do better. Well, maybe. And yes, Casie, there will be a sequel to Winter's Child. In another year. Maybe two.
I guess it's all live and learn. And, you know, get a clue and write another book.
Or two, or three, or four - before, you know, addressing the elephant in the room - what actually happened after Nathan Zradce opened his eyes took me a while to figure out. In fact, in order to not have to answer that question, I literally wrote three more books in the series. And they weren't filler or anything, the subject just kept getting bigger and bigger and who was I to argue? Okay, yes, I was procrastinating, but only with the best of intentions! I swear!
So what happens after Nathan Zradce opens his eyes? The short answer? Um, a lot. In the past couple of days, between uploading fixes to manuscripts, trying desperately to get ahold of my book cover designer to fix an error (crickets from him, he's just not responding), and working my way through the AI-narrated audiobook of Broken Code on Google Play - I've been thinking about the plot for G581: Zarmina's World. And I have a couple of announcements:
There will definitely be a series of short stories, possibly novellas, that center around the ten years between Impact and a majority of the folks crawling out of their hideyholes underground or landing ships back on Earth. It's a ten year period, so there's plenty of fodder here for the picking. I have yet to decide what the name for the series will be. I don't think it will be G581. But honestly I have no idea right now. Let me know if you think of a good name.
I already have enough for another short story anthology, so I'll have that as well at some point, probably with a real original name like G581: Further Plague Tales
I now know what happens after Nathaniel Zradce opens his eyes. And it's a doozy. My husband and teen have heard the outline and they seem to really like it. Now I just have to write it!
Wonder App for PC
The Wonder AI app is very cool and easy to use, as opposed to MidJourney which just confused me. I guess I'm more Luddite than techie. All of the steps to getting onto MidJourney, learning how to query it, and basically understanding nothing about Discord, made the journey there and back a headache and a half. As it is, just using the Wonder app on my PC (well, installing it) was enough to make me want to commit seppuku. That said, I think I did it.
The Wonder app is fantastic for creating character images. And because they are composites, I can use them in ads and other marketing material in the future. For now, I'm simply using them to visualize my characters. Later, I might add them to a page on my website where I could post the character sketches for all of my characters in case readers are into that. It's a pretty simple process. Take Firelli here. She is so stinking cute!
I typed in her name into the Create box, just because I felt like it, and then the basics, "infant, dark hair, blue eyes, female dressed in a onesie." I asked for a photo as the style, but if I were writing fantasy, I might use a different style like Mythological, or if I were writing Historical Fiction I might use Oil Painting, etc.
As I get more info, I'll fill it out, put in snippets in the Notes section to keep track of details.
Honestly, I'm shit for details. I remember having to double, triple, quadruple check if a character had injured her left arm, or her right, so now I add it to the character sketch so I have something to reference.
I'm slowly adding these in and filling out my character sheets. Some I will use, others not. All of these characters are from ones I had already created in G581: The Departure or in my limited foray into writing G581: Zarmina's World.
The big question... will Christine finish G581: Zarmina's World in time for the release date of 12/31/23? Well, Christine would like you to know that 1) she is uncomfortable with referring to herself in the third question and wonders why the hell she worded the paragraph this way, and 2) does not have a clue.
Have a wonderful weekend, folks!
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