They come knocking...

I have so many stories that are pushing to be told, now that I'm back to working my way through APoS-NWFO. It's like they think I'll be open to dealing with them when I get stuck on a point in building Brendan's new life. Which is usually how I work. But I want this volume done and published by my next birthday so need to keep my focus on that.

Hewing to the emotional component of the story is helping me move along. Brendan's awareness is still shaky and his need to know what's going on with him still stuck in a vague limbo. All he knows right now is where he is, and that's sufficient. For the moment. Even though it's 6 months since that bomb, he hasn't really been given time to grieve over Joanna and the understanding two of his best mates were responsible for it.

He's got some Catholic guilt, as mentioned, and also some deep anger building within, about that. It pops out at odd moments. I think he's slipping into an existential contemplation of his lot in life and wondering why it happened. But his focus is still tenuous, at best. He stays in his room and reads to keep the reality of the world at bay, only coming out for meals...until he is called to repair a car, again. Which takes him out of the house for the first time.

We're still coasting with the story, at this point in time, giving Bren time to settle into a world he'd seen on television and thought impossibly rich. That the family lives in River Oaks, a very expensive area of Houston, adds to the dislocation. Going from poverty to a house of plenty on a wide, tree-lined street of great homes and the aura of peace and prosperity can be very disconcerting.

So Dair's Window, books 3 & 4 of Blood Angel, and a couple more stories boiling up will just have to wait till I'm done. Hopefully, I'll still be capable of writing, by then.