‘Tis the season of NaNoWriMo, which for me, begins in October. It’s all about story development this month, laying the groundwork for the novel-writing in November. Since this will be the fourth book of the series, I have a ton of good and evil characters, monsters of my own creation, and the beginnings of a plot. But it’s going to take a huge effort to get the project ready. This really is a magical time, when the story can evolve in the deepest part of me, rising up to become reality. I’m going to be reading and re-reading many of the writing books, looking for clues and exercises that will help lead this forward. I never thought I’d be writing a fourth one but I can see it as a natural progression of the original story line, now with new, higher stakes. It’s basically an “Empire Strikes Back” type of story which may not completely resolve in this, setting up a book five. (I can’t believe I just said that…)