Starting with Secrets
So, where am I now…? I am up at 113,000 words, and the climax is about to get underway. I have two characters trying to reach three others before they are in mortal danger. A storm has just broken, the land is flooding, and there’s something to do with a crumbling building that holds a vital clue…
It’s all go.
I haven’t been able to write as much as I wanted these last couple of days, mainly because of taking on some necessary freelance work and having my 4th Covid jab, which, on top of a cold, knocked me out for a day. We also had friends visiting yesterday, a couple we met on our trip across Canada in 2020 when we had to race home two days early because Covid broke out. The two days we missed were a stay in Athens we’d planned, but as the city was, by then, closed, it didn’t matter. That’s a story for another day. Today, I am sitting down to write at least half a chapter of Starting with Secrets, and I imagine I have four more chapters to go before I can leave you wanting more. This book is half of a longer story, which will probably bring the Larkspur Series to a close. Kind of.
I have an idea for a book after ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ which will be a companion book on the side. There are things that need explaining which wouldn’t make an entire 100k novel. What I am mulling over is the idea of having some short stories, character outlines, background information, illustrations, cuts and outtakes from the Clearwater and Larkspur series, and putting them together in one volume that fans of the two series will enjoy. At the moment, I am playing with the title, ‘Barbary Fleet and Other Matters’, because one of the things we’ve yet to discover is how Fleet came to be at the academy. What’s his history, and why does he call Clem Mr Yeobright? Then, we might want to know about Frank Andino and his past tribulations. There’s a big gap in the story of Edward and Henry’s four years of survival in the Old Nichol Slum, and what happened to the men who entrapped Chester Cadman? Come to that, what happened to Skaggot from ‘Guardians of the Poor’? I may also write some vignettes for the other minor but fun characters like Doc Markland, the barrister, Cresswell, and Mrs Norwood…
That’s all for the future. For now, I’m heading off into the finale of ‘Starting with Secrets’ and I am fast approaching the end of draft one.
