Tonight I’m happy.

I’m happy because I just finished a book. It’s times like these that make me wish I still smoked. I will always remember that scene (from the movie, because–I know I am liable to catch hell for this–I have not read the book, but Kathy Bates does such a damn good job!) from Stephen King’s “Misery” where when Paul Sheldon is finished with a novel, he lights up a cigarette, the only time he does anymore.

I couldn’t get away with it. My wife would give me a hard time, but I know how it works. One cigarette leads to another cigarette which, in turn, leads to another cigarette and that leads to another…you get the idea.

So, I have a different ritual, which is taking a shot of hard liquor, but tonight I have one of those weird non-existent headaches that might be there and might not be there and I fear that if I take a shot of Brandy, the only hard liquor in my house, I am liable to get a real headache, besides I had a pretty large spiked hot chocolate last night during Eldritch Horror, a wonderful board game, I might add. And yes, it is exactly what it sound like.

Anyway, I finished The Hidden. The whole book. Episode 5 was the final episode and I put that baby to bed about an hour ago. Feels good to have it done. Sure, there will be editing and rewrites and read-throughs and all that, but the hardest part is done: turning the blank page into a full page, page after page, until the words “The End.”

I’m happy to have it done because it means that a book I have been working on for the last year and three months is done. It means that I will be able to share it with fans, and it means that I will be able to start something else now.

My mind is ablaze with all these dark wonders that I have swirling around for my next tale. It is a joyful thing indeed when the visions come and show you the way of the adventure. In my mind, the dark stories are the brightest. They nearly glow with vibrancy and I see them so clearly in my mind’s eye, I can all but live inside them.

The trick, of course, is to take that grand vision handed down by the gods through their most able and beautiful servants, the Muses, and do it the justice  it deserves.

In case anyone wants to know, my next project is Thomas Hunter Book 4. I was having such a problem trying to decide what to do next after The Hidden. It was so bad that I was going a little crazy, I admit. As soon as I would decide on one direction, I would switch and say, “Yeah, but maybe this one is the way to go” and I would slide down the rabbit hole all over again. I finally decided to do a draw out of a hat. I used a purple fedora and I put the top 5 books I wanted to work on in there. Then I pulled out a name and unceremoniously declared it in my living room, despite making my wife wince at how dorky I was being. But, I needed a little ceremonial magic to jar things loose, or rather, firm them up.

But even after that, I had this sneaky idea that I should just skip the hat trick and pretend I had never done it. After all, who’s to say not to? But, alas, reason did find me, and I declared, this time silently and resolutely, that the one from the hat is the one to be done. That is the rule, after all.

And so, Sirius Evil was..not born, but conceived. It won’t be born for probably another nine months. Yes, these books really are my babies.