The sequel.

Since I had finished the original version of Catalina I thought the book was finished. Even when, with edits and conversation with my editor, I deleted the whole section about the Ship of Dreams, I thought Catalina would be a stand alone book.

I am not one for trilogies - I used to love them but that was before everyone started writing them, all the publishers wanting the threepeat (or the sevenpeat). But therer were some unfinished thing about Catalina.

In conversations with Dragonfall Press I began to hint that there was more because I knew there was but I couldn't work out how to start. I thought perhaps of traveling back in time and writing about the witch as a child and the grandmother (who began the mess with Catalina's grandfather) as a child - 3 women - Catalina, Griselda and Isabella. The three books have a nice ring to them (and I love the Triple Goddess aspect) and perhaps one day I will write those other two novels but they are not the continuation of this story.

What I really wanted to do was get Peter back home to Mellothande for a while and then bring him back to Arboroth but the rules I had set up for crossover points didn't seem to allow for this to happen. I was stuck.

And there was the section about the Ship of Dreams that I (and my wife agrees with me) really loved but that didn't really fit in with Catalina - even though the Ship of Dreams was the original title and where the story actually began.

Then Lee finished her wonderful work on my cover and her work set the wheels in motion. Sometimes we just need a trigger. The eye in the cover was the trigger. I've got the picture sitting on my kitchen table and every day I'd give it the once over - then it happened.

I have now started writing the sequel. 13,000 words in and it is taking shape. The Ship is back and Peter does manage to go home and I can get him back. The rules are in tact, it fits together.

Colin Wilson spoke of writing as a problem to be solved. If that is true then a sequel is like a rubik's cube. How can you get everything you have set in place to fit with the new adventures you wish to explore?

For a time I had almost given up.

But triggers are wonderful things, or as Kevin said, 'Sometimes you just need another viewpoint, another eye.'

Lee gave me that.

And so now I am busy on the sequel.