Career Surprise

I wrote THE FLOCK in the days when I didn't have an agent. I sold it that way...on my own, without the help of an agent. Then I got inquiries on the movie rights, and in a sequence of events I've talked about here before, movie producer Don Murphy expressed interest in optioning the film rights. That's when I got in touch with agent Robert L. Fleck who negotiated the deal for me.

After that, he asked me if I'd thought about writing a sequel. I think he was just cleaning up some details and wasn't encouraging me to do that. He just needed to know if I'd given it any thought. I told him that other people had asked me the same thing, but that I had no intention of writing a sequel. I'd pretty much made the statements I wanted to make with THE FLOCK and didn't see any real need to continue with those characters.

But the thought must have lodged somewhere other than the back rooms of my mind, because one day the idea for a second and third novel hit me. Not only did I suddenly have a decent pitch for a sequel, but for a third novel to complete a trilogy. Yeah, I was completely surprised.

So I wrote down the ideas and emailed them to Bob Fleck. He liked the ideas, too, and added them to the package he was shopping around to publishers.

And so, here I am writing a novel using a continuing cast of characters. I'd never really thought about doing that, but my second novel will be a continuation of my first one. I rather like the idea, and although I generally try to forget my characters as soon as I write "the end" on my novels, I'm having a good time getting to know them again.

It's going to be a lot of fun.