Seeing the Backside of Summer and Welcoming Fall (At Last!)

Granted, the Fall / Autumn Equinox is tomorrow, but I won't have time at all to write a post. 

hand-drawn illustration from Freepik

I began preliminary work on Doppelgänger after hemming and hawing for so long on how best to approach the narrative. It's a return to dark drama, and considering the subject (hell, the title!), I need a very personal touch for the book, and since I've been champing at the bit for another epistolary narrative, I finally settled down on a series of short journal entries from the MC (at the moment named Alec, but that might change). 

Everything right now is a placeholder (character names included), and so far I've only written just over 600 words. 

I was at first planning to get going on this book in October, but as I've given myself all of September to finish polishing up The Twilight Lover and then be lazy for the rest of the month, I feel energized enough (not to mention inspired enough) to at least get the opening page written. I still have time to sit on this and see if I still like it when I look at it next weekend. 

But I love the idea of a character who already feels isolated pouring his thoughts into a banged-up, spiral-bound (generic) notebook for comfort -- hence a return to the epistolary form. The difference between this book and all the other books I've written in this format is that the account is strictly in journal entries and no letters (texts and emails included). 

As before, too, I'm going to have to be careful moving forward with this because dialogue in the traditional sense shouldn't be an extensive part of journal entries -- summaries of conversations and the character's responses to them, yes, but not detailed exchanges. 

The same goes with events that transpire, of course. I still look to books like Dracula as both inspiration on what to do and what NOT to do what with all those looooong, overly detailed recollections in journal entries. The Demeter captain's log entries are the way to go, but Alec's will be more extensive than those as well. And I daresay sinking myself into a new gothic horror book in epistolary form is the way to experience Autumn. 

Another thing I'd like to share is a possible plotbunny for another book set in the Nightshade universe, but it's just a teeny-weenie germ of an idea, and it might not happen at all. I'll play with it some more and see if it promises enough weight and heft for a complete story. If I do add it to my to-do list, there's going to be another shuffling of the calendar. But as always, I'll post about it, regardless.