I received an interesting email the other day, and it’s put me in the mode to work – hard – on one of my WIPs. Throughout October, I’ll get it all arranged and planned and thought through. Once NaNo starts November 1st, I’ll be ready to give it my full attention. This one in particular hasn’t seen any attention really, since I don’t even remember when, but I’m going to run off the original 5k that I started with in July of 2008.

I always want to re-visit New Bedlam with Jack Dawes and Shay McClane in the fall, and usually I fight off the urge to work on something else. They’ve never truly been ready to have either of their stories told before, but now… it’s time, I think, and from the beginning of their history in New Bedlam.

That means ‘One for Sorrow.’

Although they each have their own novel-in-progress set in or around New Bedlam, One for Sorrow is where they were both introduced into my little world of dark and creepy. They each cross over into the other’s territory. They are a strangely matched, weirdly presented, odd couple – but it works.

What didn’t work the last time, I think, was that I really started the story in the middle. Jack wakes up with a hangover and a naked Shay in his bed. Back and forth a bit in time and place, and… a confusing mess of Bedlam, if you’ll pardon the reference.

One for Sorrow needs to go back to the beginning, the first time Jack was thrust into the lives of the McClane family. The first time he met Shay and her gentle-spirited mother, Micheline.

Remember yesterday when I said I skirted the edges of what I find acceptable in the writing I do? What happens to Shay during her life… that’s skirting a lot closer to twisty than just to the dark side. A lot of these things stem from nightmares I had as a child, which makes me wonder just what it was going on during the waking hours, that my mind had to process them in such a manner. For the most part, I’ve grown out of them. Thankfully.

Am I setting myself up for failure here? A return to the nightmares? *shrug* Probably, and regretfully, in that order. Still… I might get another 50k in words out of it, and if they’re readable, good words, I’ll be happy.

And maybe the muse & fornit will finally shut up about Jack’s Malibu and Shay’s Shadow!!! <|;^p <3 JL