My wife likes to remind me on occasion, too many occasions, that I have not started my next novel in two years.

While that may be true, from a certain point of view, in another it is a galaxy beyond the truth. While I have not been typing words for my next novel, there are voices aplenty screaming at my brain where I must go next.

In many ways, I wish I could just complete one tale and begin another, but I cannot. In my addled brain I have one over-arching story that begins with The Rages, The Book of the Shepherds Volume I, and ends sixteen novels later.

I have considered on many occasions the impracticality and impossibility of it all. I have done little to none of the necessary steps writers do to promote their work. I have attended no writer’s conferences, had no book premiers, and my “website” draws little but digital dust. I have done little in the way of advertising, and seldom even mention my secret obsession with those I know.

I finished the first four books, cast them out into the universe, and watched them settle comfortably to the bottom of the vast literary pool.

Why the hell am I doing this?

Because I must, is the answer. It may simply be a “vanity” project, but until I get it out of my head, it will simmer until it boils over and drives me mad.

I promised my wife I would start promoting my work (two years ago), but never have. To do so requires a certain confidence and bravado that I am sorely lacking. I’ll find a way to start this year.

While I have not been pecking words on a keyboard, I have been writing five different novels, only in my head. I set things in place with The Book of the Shepherds, and now I must find a way to remain consistent with the overarching narrative. Every door I close I cannot reopen, so, I need to tread carefully.

The next two books are prequels. As a reader and a fan of anything geeky (fantasy or science fiction), I struggle with prequels because I already know where the story is going. Case in point was the movie Solo. I liked the movie, but I didn’t feel anything was really at stake because I knew the main characters survive whatever threat was coming their way.

For my two prequels, they could almost be novels separate from this story. None of the characters from the first four books are there. But these novels will give details on the story that follows and explain a little bit on who the Shepherds of Chance might be, and a looming threat I barely hinted at in the previous books.

So, for two years I haven’t been Not Writing, I have let my imagination “simmer.”

I am not a “writer,” I just spend a lot of time doing so or thinking about doing so. I have most of my life.

To start writing before it is time to start is skating on thin ice.

I’ve had this idea in my head for forty-five years, and I’ll get it out, one way or the other, before I am gone. But when I write, I need to be sure where I am going, and that depends (for me) entirely on the characters. For two years I have let them bicker and argue on where the story goes from here, and they have finally reached a consensus, so I can begin telling their story.

So, appropriately enough, on April Fools’ Day I will begin in earnest on the next volumes in this series. I think the characters have given me a direction to start, and I am sure they will give me a twist or turn along the way, but that’s the best part of the journey.

I have set my deadlines, and I usually take them to the last possible moment before completion but have never broken one. I am close to 59 years old, and this thought in my head will be exorcised by the time I retire from my day job when I am 68.

By James L. Davis

I was awakened in the middle of the night.

“Stay down. They might be watching.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“They’re trying to kill me.”

I’m not used to being awakened in the middle of the night, except by my wife’s dog, who will on occasion yawn to tell me she wants to go outside. Not that she needs to go outside, she just wants to go out in the middle of the night to have a look around.

“Who are ‘They?’”

“I don’t know,” my late-night intruder responded. “But there’s thousands of them, all dressed in orange.”

I reached out and turned on the nightstand light and my wife mumbled incoherently and threw the blankets over her head. I wished she hadn’t because I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with what was in our bedroom. There was a deer standing at the end of our bed, looking rather distressed.

“You’re a deer,” I said, stating the obvious.

“I’m a Buck,” my intruder informed me.

“Well, why are you in my bedroom?” I asked.

“Because they’re trying to kill me!” The deer went to my wife’s drawing table and sat down on her studio chair, shaking his head. “I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what I’ve done. But they’re out to kill me.”

I tried again to rub the sleep from my eyes. “Well, you’re a deer.”

“The dog said you were quick.”

“You talk to the dog?”

“Sometimes she comes out at night, and we chat.”

“That explains a lot. What I meant was you are a deer, and it is Deer Season.”

“Meaning?” The deer began to twirl around on my wife’s studio chair.

“Meaning that the people in orange are hunters and they’re trying to kill you for a reason.”

“What reason? I don’t even know who they are.”

“Well, either to eat you or to cut your head off and put it on their wall.”

The buck stopped spinning. “You’re kidding, right?

“Afraid not,” I said.

“Are you a hunter?” The deer was leaning forward in the chair, either ready to take flight down the hallway or dance a jig on our bed, I wasn’t sure which.

“Nope,” I said. “I don’t care for the taste of deer meat.”

“So now you’re saying I taste bad.”

“I didn’t say you tasted bad. I didn’t realize deer were so hostile.”

“Hostile!” The deer raised his voice, making my wife mumble and bury herself deeper within the covers. “Let me tell you about hostile. I’m getting ready for the rut, feeling pretty good about myself, wanting to strut around a little, and then suddenly BAM! People I don’t even know are shooting at me. Wouldn’t you be hostile?”

“Suppose so. But could you keep it down, you’ll wake my wife and the kids.”

“I’m a Buck.” The deer jumped off my wife’s studio chair and pranced to my side of the bed “They won’t understand me.”

“I do,” I said.

“Yes. But you’re not normal.”

“I’ve been told. What do you want from me anyway?”

“Sanctuary.”

“Sorry, all my neighbors are hunters, and I don’t want them storming through the house looking for you. You can take my orange hat and vest if you want, maybe they’ll think you’re a hunter yourself.”

“Fat chance. I’ve got a rack to die for.”

“Interesting choice of words,” I said. “Why’d you come to me in the first place?”

“Your dog said you might be able to help.”

“I’ve got to do something about that dog.”

The deer was pacing now, and I could see he was becoming agitated again. “You’re not going to remember any of this when you wake up, are you?”

“I sincerely hope not,” I said.

The buck turned and bounded out of my room, down the hall and out the door and I was able to get back to sleep.

The next morning, I was quite convinced that I either needed to cut back on my caffeine intake or go immediately into therapy. But then I noticed that my safety hat and vest were missing. There were deer droppings on my welcome mat, and to top it off, what I always thought was a yawn from my wife’s dog now seemed suspiciously like a laugh.

I do not consider myself a writer, but I write. Because of this horrible addiction, I listen when people say something I consider “interesting” and I file it away, thinking I might use this some day.

Such a thing happened this morning, in the most mundane of places. I stopped at a convenience store for a soda, and when I tried to pay, the card reader kept saying “error.”

The cashier took my card, rubbed her thumb across it and tried. It went right through.

“I guess it just takes the right touch,” I said.

She smiled. “They’re like women. Tell them they’re pretty and bring them tacos.”

I’ll use that quote somewhere, some day.

I told her “great life lesson,” took my card and my soda, and went on my way.

That is all.

Greyland, the sequel to The Rages is now available. It’s a twisted world inside my head. Not quite as twisted as the real world, but still.

Part III of the series, Redemption, and Part IV, The Vale, will be available by the end of the year. I’ve got some writing to finish.