Miracle Year for writing.

I wonder if I'll look back on 2013 as a miracle year for writing.  It started a few months earlier, in September, 2012, with The Reluctant Wizard.  That's when I broke through.  I'd been struggling with Almost Human (now entitled Faerylander) for a year and a quarter by that time.  I liked the book, but it wasn't coming out right.

So in a way, I rediscovered my path with The Reluctant Wizard, quickly followed by a book I wrote for fun, Freedy Filkins.  Then, it all sort of came together with Death of an Immortal.  (I woke up with a vampire story in my head, all the while screaming, "No!  Vampires are played out!")

After that, I seem to have busted loose.  I wrote continually for the next year, and on into January, 2014.  In total, about a year a half.  But the meat of it was contained in 2013.

I knew it was unusual.  I just went with it.  I figured I'd slow down eventually.  I wear out, or run out of ideas, or something would come along to distract me.

Funnily enough, the thing that finally kind of brought me out of my creative "fugue" was the need to rewrite some of what I'd written.  I didn't want to get so far ahead of myself that nothing was actually completed.  I figured 4 or 5 "complete" books would be better than 10 or 12 first drafts.

And that's what happened. 

I don't think my creative spurt is over.  I'm excited by Ghostlander, the third Lander book that I have written the first two chapters of, and I think I'm finally getting Faerylander into shape.  So in the not too distant future, I should have at least three of these Lander books done.  I intend to continue that series.

Unless -- Led to the Slaughter is a huge success.  Because my main character is only 13 years old at the end of the book, in 1847.   There are many more adventure tales I could set in the period with Virginia Reed as the protagonist.  I really like the character, and wouldn't mind writing more of her adventures.

And then there is my first love -- the fantasy books.  I've got a bunch of them in various stages of completion.  I'll tell you -- no one is more surprised than me that I started writing Horror.  I think the fantasy books need more work.  There are rough outlines of a couple of trilogies.  I'd love to have them all be in the same universe, but that may not be possible.

I also have my kind of s.f./fantasy books, Deviltree and Deeptower.  Deviltree I wrote 30 years ago, and -- to my great surprise -- I wrote a sequel in 2013.  I'd like to go back and make them a little more hardcore, with horror elements.  The kind of soft fantasy I was writing so long ago no longer interests me.  The Deeptower worlds have great potential, and I think there is another trilogy there -- just written with a stronger edge.

Counting the 2 Lander books I've already written, which are about Cthuhlu and Werewolves, I've now completed 7 Horror genre books.

But you know what?  I think this genre has a whole lot to offer.  I don't think it has been quite as overwhelmed as fantasy, for instance, or mysteries.  I like my fantasies with a bit of darkness these days, I guess.

I'm still shaping up the 2 books I haven't yet sent the publisher.  Led to the Slaughter will be done in a few days, Blood of Gold a couple of weeks after that.

Then I'll see if my creative spurt continues.