Finishing Things

I’m working on my third million dollars. Yes, I gave up on the previous two…

So, now I’m, like 27,000 words into a new novel – 27,033, but who’s counting. But this evening, while trying to find the new one on my cloud drive, I came across the other novels I’d already started.

Let’s see, there’s an English murder mystery – sort of a non-starter because I’m a terrible mystery writer (can’t keep a secret).

There’s a story about a fictional European country attempting to convert a 104-gun ship of the line into a 50-gun razee. That one’s kind of interesting, actually – my homage to the Three Musketeers.

How about this? A teenage kid gets into a series of scrapes with the family car, only to find there’s a family of miniature people living inside it. Clever? Witty?

How about a re-imagining of a book I’ve already published but seen through the eyes of a thirteen year old black slave girl?

All right, one more: a foppish, wealthy English land officer buys a privateer to rescue his failing career, only to find his crew has much darker plans.

My darling wife told me I’m a humorist, and should only write a story that I’m happy to tell.

Sooooo, this new book springboards off of my also-already-published novel Droppington Place – admittedly not a great book – and has fun with the main character Winchester Penrose, a misbegotten sawdust man, and his ten-year-old companion and their adventures in trying to get home. Yes, it is odd, but it makes me happy.

I imagine the point is that you have to knock on a lot of doors to find the story that makes you happy.

We’ll talk more when I finish this one…