The Fire is Back

Listening to: Avenged Sevenfold
Reading: Relentless by Dean Koontz
Next in Reading List: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane, then perhaps Floating Dragon by Peter Straub (Again)

So, after my story 'Jack Rainey and the Apocalypse Swarm' was accepted by Black Label Books for publication I noticed they publish novellas as well. I had a novel I was working on around November last year, 'Kept'. But it stalled around 27,000 words. There was no way I could extend it to a full-length novel. I am close to the ending, I expect it to finish out around 30,000-32,000 words. So, I've decided to make it a novella. After I finish the first draft (This coming week, hopefully), maybe get that beta-ed, get editing and rewrites completed, I have somewhere to sub it to.

I know other publications accept novellas, that was never the issue, but Black Label pubs in E-Book format, and I like that. Plus, they're great people to work with. Mad Props to Julie and Julia! And it's kind of a hard story to categorize. It's probably Dark Fiction. A short synopsis (on the fly, people, so it won't be great) is: A woman wakes to find she's been kidnapped. While she looks around the room she discovers she can see through one of the walls. She steps through the wall, and it's a portal to a whole other world. A world where women are controlled by a father-figure of evil proportions. Her husband, a ex-government assassin (unbeknownst to her) begins a fevered search for her, enlisting friends, one of whom has psychic abilities (unbeknownst to HER before this). A man who's brother the husband killed had paid for the kidnapping, but when the woman disappears everything gets weird, to say the least. Another kidnap victim, who also passed through the wall, and one of the cowed women from the other world make up the cast. It's a fun, scary, and intriguing story.

I can't wait to see how it ends. I'm happy that seeing Black Label pubs novellas relit the fire I once had for this story.