Writing update

Last night, I started a new story (my 6th of the year) and the first I've ever written which is intentionally planned to be part of a series of stories set in the same universe.  The idea came from the novel that I tried to write for NaNoWriMo last year.  I have no experience writing novels and the truth is, I don't seem to know very much about how to make them work, at least not yet.  However, I liked what I was writing and I though that the central idea and some of the scenes that I had...