For those of you who haven’t been following this series, I’ve gotten mentally sidetracked the past few weeks with my current kickstarter campaign. It just ended and did fairly well given it is only my second time. And a quick thank you to everyone who supported that.

But running the campaign definitely took up a good chunk of my mental energy and between that and the heat wave that hit New England, I got no new writing or editing done– or at least not enough to make it count. And I hate when that happens. A part of me is berating myself for not staying on track with my outlined goals. I’d intended to have book nine completed by the end of May. I managed to get up to about 47k words.

I realized that this book is likely to be a chonker, since at this point, my characters haven’t even engaged with what the portended main quest/dilemma is. At first, that idea felt overwhelming, making the goal– once again- feel that much farther away and a little overwhelming.

Then last night, I was working on some of the details of the kickstarter. One of the bonus rewards is a short story. I came up with the idea of offering a bonus story that tells about what happened after Fern and Kadaris haul-ass out of Tatak Rhe. We never get a chance to see the mess they left for Kirrin, who likely has some ‘splainin to do.

I spent a while going back and forth with how this might play out. What would Kirrin do when he is summoned by his overlord and questioned about mages who have gone missing from a secret prison? This is definitely one of those “no good answer” moments. Why no sir, I knew nothing”– isn’t a good look on someone you pay to work as your spy and informant. But the other alternative– “why yes–i do know who and i almost helped them” is even worse. And for those of you who know Kirrin’s story, there is no third option. Hak’kar holds Kirrin’s mother as a comfortable hostage against his good behaviour. And there is no way he is going to convince her to disappear with him. For one, she isn’t speaking to him, given that she knows what he does for a living. Or, if she doesn’t know what he does, exactly, she knows who he does it for and can fill in the gaps. And she begged Kirrin to just walk away. Kirrin couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. He likes his life, and he likes most of what he does. And he’s come to terms with the fact that sometimes he removes difficult people that stand in the way of Hak’kar’s plans.

This was a fun challenge to sit with. When I’d put Kirrin in this position, I realized he was likely going to be in a bind. But that was an issue for future-TJ. Well, I spent a while figuring out how this scenario might play out. In the end, I came up with a solution that might just be a whole ‘nother book. Kirrin and Caldin (one of the captured mages), and Hak’kar might just make a very unlikely but interesting trio. and, in this scenario, Kirrin just might make an unexpected fast-travel over to Canowin.

This also got me to thinking about Ch’hikk. She’s always been a bit of a delightful mystery. We know that she’s always been dead set on getting that relic out of circulation. And she isn’t entirely wrong. It is dangerous and is capable of enormous destructive magic in the wrong hands. But just what does she intend to do with it? and, is she actually against magic? If she were, was she conspiring with the anti-magic factions in Finoren and acting against the crown and Fern’s interests? Or did she have some other motivation behind her actions? I haven’t entirely chewed through this one yet– but it may make for another interesting plot development somewhere along the line:)

But yes- it reminded me never to ignore those pesky side characters. Often, they have secrets and resources that get overlooked. I just have to be careful because side characters have a funny way of turning into a whole series of books!