As
I wrote a few weeks ago, I have been writing a spy story - now it’s two.
Currently, I plan to rename “Secret Keepers” to “Secret Keeper” and I will
rename the second novel “Key Pieces.” And, yes, they are novels. After adding
two half-chapters to properly round up story one, it’s only about 400 words
short of 60,000 (and requirements for NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words, anyway). The
second one almost reaches 65,000 words and is definitely over the limit.
After
looking through my bullet journal (which I’ve kept for over a year now) and
tracing the days on which I really wrote (I put the story and the amount of
words written in there every day), I found out I needed 13 days (12 originally
and yesterday when I added the two half-chapters) for the first novel and 17
days for the second one. Both are still in first draft, there will be changes
for both of them, especially the first where I was still finding my feet in the
world of the Knight Agency and Agent Browne. Yet, I have written more in
October than I have written before. I have kept writing day by day, have
written at least one chapter per day, have never stopped before I had written
at least a full chapter. Why? Because it was fun, because the stories kept
evolving in my head. Because I wanted to see where it would go.
I
still have a lot of work to do with those stories - I need to edit them
properly, I need to find an artist to do the cover art for me, I need to
publish them on Amazon. Because this time, I will play for keeps. This time I
will self-publish and see if anyone likes them.
And
then? There’s already stuff for a third story going through my mind. Spy
stories might be a great place for me to play and work, because they’re
adventure stories and because I like putting my characters in strange
situations and get them out of them again. Jane is very good at thinking on her
feet, so I can throw at her whatever I wish. If she can’t handle it, she has
friends to help, lots of them: Steven, Brock, Frank, Liam, Edith, Cynthia,
Martin, Stacy, Myra, Aaron, and the heads of the Knight Agency for a start.
Others will come, I’m sure.
The Knight Agency has already survived for a thousand
years … may it also survive a lot of stories in the future.
