On a Sequel to Clockwork Heart
Although I initially wrote Clockwork Heart as a standalone novel, enough readers and reviewers have wondered about a sequel that I’ve found myself musing over what’s going to happen next to Taya and Cristof. As a result, I’m planning to start writing an as-of-yet-unnamed and -uncontracted sequel this November. It ought to be a lighthearted break from the grim and gruesome world of King’s Monster that I’ve been working on all summer!
Why November? Well, I wrote the first draft of Clockwork Heart in November 2004 for National Novel Writing Month, so it seems appropriate to tackle its sequel in the same venue. You can follow my progress this November by checking DrDru over at the NaNoWriMo site — there’ll be occasional excerpts there. If you’re curious about my list of previous NaNoWriMo works, you’ll find it on the root site for this blog.
What will the sequel be about? Well, it’ll still fall in the steampunk fantasy genre, of course, but more thriller than mystery. Now that T&C have jobs in Ondinium’s diplomatic corps, it seems only fitting to thrust them deeper into the world of political conspiracy and industrial espionage they brushed up against in Clockwork Heart. I’m not too worried about Taya — she can take care of herself. But imagining Cristof as a diplomat conjures up all sorts of disastrous scenarios! I’m afraid Taya’s going to have her hands full, keeping him from causing an international incident. :-) It’s against the rules in NaNoWriMo to write anything out before Nov. 1, though, so all I’ve done so far is outline a couple of key scenes and jot notes to myself on my whiteboard.
When will it be finished? Well, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to have 50,000 words written by the end of November, but the final edited manuscript for Clockwork Heart was around 119,800 words long. A lot will depend on how easily the story flows — with luck, more easily than the CH, since I’ll go into the project with a much firmer grasp of the main characters’ personalities and of their culture and city — and on how much fiction writing I can fit in while simultaneously editing Girls Doing Boys Doing Boys this winter. After November, I’ll post updates on my progress on this site — during November, they’ll be posted at NaNoWriMo.
When will it be published? Um, let me work on getting it written, first….
Anyway, I just thought I should let you know the plan! I hope you’ll check in at NaNoWriMo this November to read the excerpts I’ll post there and cheer me on. Comments, advice, and nagging will all be cheerfully accepted and will help keep me focused!
drupagliassotti @ August 30, 2008
A sequel would ‘tickle me pink’, so to speak. I’m infinitely thankful that I Stumbled upon Clockwork Heart - I literally couldn’t put it down, staying up all night until muster the next morning, anxiously flipping through the electronic pages.
I’ll be watching your NaNo progress anxiously.
Thanks, Biochrome! I’m going to be *dying* in November, because I have two other major projects due the same month, but CH ought to be fun….
I’ll update this blog regularly through November … much more often than I’ve been posting recently (sorry!).
I’ve just finished reading the mmpb of Clockwork Heart and I really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to more of Taya and Christof but I also wouldn’t mind if you focused (or wrote a seperate sequel in that world) on Lictor Amcathra. I find him most fascinating and for me he took over the scenes he showed up in.
Best of luck and health in the New Year and may you sell more novels ^^.