It's about time that I talk about where I am with Anthem Book 2. Anthem was my first story and I really didn't know where to begin other than knowing I wanted to write a story. So I decided that I would create an outline for the story I wanted to write, which turned out to be 70 chapters spanning 10 years. A large and daunting task! But I had a start and an end, and with that I began writing.
I completed Book 1 and began writing Book 2, starting where the last ended. The first chapter was completed and it was sent off to my editor, and I began on the following chapters. After having drafts for the next three chapters I stopped because I encountered a problem that I could not adequately resolve.
The problem was there were story ideas within the outline that were not about Alex, but they were integral to his character either directly or indirectly and were needed for the story to continue, at least that's how I saw it. A second problem was when I stopped to work on the first problem I went back to review what I had written and found that the story had gone too dark.
So I stopped and put it down to resolve the two problems, plus a third which was I was also kind of burned out with Alex. Since I wasn't getting anywhere with my problems I put Anthem away for the moment, and decided that I would use a story idea from the outline, that would become The World I Know (TWIK). For some stupid reason I decided NOT to tie this back to Anthem or to the Character in Anthem that the story was about, which is Stevie. It might have done that because Stevie was a bully and if you knew that going into the story, you might carry the prejudices that can go along with it.
After TWIK was posted I decided that by taking ideas from the Anthem outline I could solve my first problem by writing the side stories before tackling Alex. And with most of Alex's friends, his neighbors the Millers, his Parents, and a couple other characters that have been or will be mentioned in the stories coming up, there are a lot of stories to be written.
So Anthem is not forgotten, but it will be presented in a different way and I plan on creating a yet-to-be-named Universe to place the Alex related stories in.
Another reason that I decided not to continue with Alex as the main character is because I wanted to write something different, and each of the stories I've written have been unique. TWIK is a story with a Twilight Zone feeling. My next story, Animals was my attempt at a Stroke story. Hallelujah came from the movie Crash, different people with different stories coming together due to a single event, as well as the song Hallelujah. And finally, The Door Upon Which I Knock (TDUWIK) was started in anger, and kind of finished in the same way, but for different reasons.
I final thought as I close this blog, the only reward I receive are the responses you send in, which I consider a payment for the time and effort I put forth for the story. So, please send feedback, but if you hate the story, please be gentle;)