Well, here we are in deepest winter and this snow lover is disappointed yet again in the lack of Maryland snowfall. There’s still hope, though. Sometimes February can be our lucky month. The good news is that after a Nov/Dec writing slump/holiday frenzy, I am back to writing and once again excited about working on Thief of Destiny. I’ve had ideas for future scenes flitting through my head, which is exciting and energizing. I hope this will give me the boost to finally finish the book because I really want to find out what’s going to happen. I envy those people who say that when they start writing a book they know how it’s going to end or even the exact last line. I have a general idea of how I think the book should end, but it’s not exact. Right now I’m giving Sydney and Willem a 50-50 chance and I’m not sure what they are going to do when I get to where I think I’m eventually going to end up. All the more reason to hurry up and get there, right?

The interesting thing is that I just wrote one of the few scenes that had been in my head when I began the book. And it turns out this scene was influenced by Journey to Hope, the prequel I wrote that came out last month. It’s nice that Crescent Moon Press has given their authors the opportunity to write short spin-off stories of their novels. At first I wasn’t sure what story I might want to write. I even polled my critique groups to see, as readers, whose story they might like to read about and got some varied answers. The story I ended up writing about Edgar’s past was not what I first had in mind. I wanted to be sure I didn’t have too many spoilers in case someone read the prequel before reading Thief of Hope. I think I mostly succeeded in that, although there are a couple spoilers but I don’t think they would detract from someone’s enjoyment of the novel. But writing this piece about Edgar fleshed out some important bits that show up in book 2 (how’s that for a vague teaser?) and I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t written the prequel. Would book 2 have taken a different course? I’m quite happy with the way things are going, so I think it all happened for a reason. It’s funny how writing works out that way.

I’m hoping to do more reading in 2013 also. I just finished Clash of Kings (thoughts to come soon) and have book 3 of the Dark Tower series waiting on my shelf. I’m currently reading War of the Seasons: The Human, a young adult fantasy by Janine Spendlove, who I met at Balticon last year. What are you all reading so far this year?