Sequel

Picking up where I left off the last time, I finished up the read through and editing pass for the Mystery/Romance on the 16th. I'm giving it a month's rest so I can look at it with fresh eyes.

I woke up one day and had an idea for a story set on a space station in the outer solar system. It would be a mystery/suspense type of thing, I think. I started doing research. There's enough of a timeline to do at least two books. The station has to be built. It probably needs a shakedown cruise to Mars to get the bugs worked out. I have multiple distinct time periods: construction, shakedown cruise, journey to the outer system(six years) and then what happens after it gets there. There's a lot to work with depending on what I want to do and think I can do. These would probably be short novels, but that brings up an idea about doing shorter books that needs a future post of its own.

However, instead of going straight to the space station books, I've somehow ended up working on the sequel to Messengers. The prologue begins within days of Call to War then jumps two or three months ahead to Afton wanting to sign a peace treaty with B'vellah. Maybe a few months later Etan and Kayley's wedding would take place. As mentioned in the last book, at some point a war breaks out.

I've already been writing the prologue the events of which seem pretty much set in stone. It's too big for a normal prologue. Maybe I'll divide it into something like Part I. I'm not sure of all the plot yet. Marion is one of the main characters. Afton's sons will play a larger role. The reason I barely mentioned them in Messengers is because I didn't think of them until the end then had to go back and add them in, but by then it was too late for them to be a real part of the series. Oops.
Some things will take place on earth, but I'm not sure how much. A future book about Calliope has events that take place on earth. I need to figure out how to keep that discrete from the sequel.

Anyway, I'm out of time. The next little while should be working on the sequel to Messengers.