Revisiting

While working on editing Next Book for a some-time-before-Christmas release (I’ll do an announcement once I’ve got a nice shiny cover to show you), I’ve been doing something I’ve never really done before. I’ve been going back. I’ve been revisiting. And I’ve been sending my characters there too.

I’ve written quite a few books now. You haven’t seen most of them, because they’re a) not edited yet and b) not all that good, but they do exist. What I haven’t done much is write sequels. I have a couple of manuscripts that are so big I should really cut them into trilogies, but that’s not the same – I wrote them in one go as one story. I’ve only done one proper series so far – the Boiling Seas books. 2 books, 2 separate but connected stories – and now a third one, that I’ve actually started writing in earnest.

Now despite featuring the same characters, Nightingale’s Sword, apart from a couple of scenes at the university-library-hospital of the Lantern, was set in entirely new locations. The airships, the jungle islands of Tyria, the ancient temples – all new places, all new settings to explore. And though most of Boiling Seas 3 is also going to be in new locations, it’s currently kicking off right where the series began: Tal Wenlock holding up a handful of fire in the very same ancient tomb from the beginning of Blackbird. It’s pleasingly cyclical.

Obviously it’s not exactly the same scene (for one thing Tal’s already broken into that tomb). But that’s what makes it more fun. I’m taking a very familiar location, one I spent weeks bringing to life and sending my protagonist through, and now I’m sending him back in a new context. (And in new company; Lily Wenlock is of course also present and ready for action). And it’s really fun. I won’t spoil exactly what’s changed, but a lot’s happened in the months since Blackbird.

And that’s just for Tal and Lily. For me, it’s been 6 years since I first wrote Blackbird. I didn’t publish it till much later, but that first draft comes from a very different time in my life. I was in my second year at university, sketching maps during gaps in Shakespeare performances. I’m still very proud of that first scene. And now going back it really feels like I’m physically going back to somewhere from my childhood and seeing it with fresh eyes; some old building that’s been renovated, an old house that you no longer live in. An old university you no longer study at (as I discovered the last time I wandered through UCL).

Everything’s still there, but everything’s different. And it’s good. It’s refreshing, it’s new, and I’m having a great time exploring all those differences through my lovely protagonists.

I suspect I’m going to run into the same scenario several times as I go through this book. (And, hopefully, in future series, as soon as I get round to writing them.) I’ve got plenty of action planned in and around Port Malice, in places I’ve already visited and places I’ve only briefly mentioned. You’ll have to wait and see what they are. It’s going to take me a while to explore them all. But it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.