What's next? Part III

In addition to some freelance work I need to finish this week, today I started a query letter to another agent from my A-list. All query letters must be carefully written but this agent has some very specific instructions on her website regarding how a query should look. So I am being particularly careful with this letter.

I also started some preliminary work on something new.

When I wrote AN UNTIDY AFFAIR back in November, I intended for it to be a one-off project. It was just that novel and nothing more. As I finished and started thinking about my next project, I was unsure as whether to go back and complete THE DEATH OF ART, the novel I had been working on prior to AFFAIR, or whether to start something new. I love DOA and it is half done. But I was undecided.

Well, I have decided to leave DOA on the shelf for the moment and write another novel with David Blaise, the protagonist in AFFAIR. In fact, this novel will be a prequel. It will be another murder mystery and will be set again in Philadelphia but several years before AFFAIR. And it will provide some very valuable background into Blaise, how he became a private eye and why he has problems with woman.

I generally don't like to outline stories but today I started outlining the story for the novel. Just as with AFFAIR, it will be a loose outline but will, in the end, probably be longer than the 10-page, handwritten outline I did for AFFAIR.

The story will be based on a sentence in the first chapter of AFFAIR. It was a throw-off sentence. It was just something that came to mind suddenly regarding a relative Blaise doesn't like but for whom he once did an unspecified favor. I wrote the sentence and rarely gave it another thought. But now, I plan to explore what that favor was.

I have no idea what I will title this project. I don't even have a temporary title. I plan to explore many aspects of the story as I outline it in the coming weeks but I have an overall idea what it's about and I'm excited about that.

So, as I continue querying agents, I will prepare to plunge into something new. I think that's the best way to go. Do the best I can with what I'm working on until it's done and then move on. And at the moment, from a creative standpoint, I am done with AFFAIR.

It's about time to move on.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.