In which we find our hero at home with a sick kid

My stepson Anthony started throwing up around 1:00 am (good morning to you too! I hope you’ve had your coffee!). My wife Kelly was the one who got up to take care of him. I have a vague recollection of something going on and hearing him get sick, some shuffling and moaning, Kel getting out of bed, before I dropped back off to la-la land.

Things seemed pretty quiet the rest of the night, but she was apparently a little wound up by the incident and didn’t fall back asleep for several hours. Mondays she takes two classes at the local community college (one on multimedia and one on Dreamweaver), and she really needed to get to them, so I’m staying home today to keep an eye on the little guy (who now seems fine, but we couldn’t really send him to school in good conscience).She left for class a little while ago, bleary-eyed and tired. I made her some coffee but I’m not sure how much good it will do.

I’ll be checking in with my office throughout the day, but I’m also planning to get serious about outlining the sequel to The Sapphire Eye, tentatively titled The Black Flame (with the concluding volume called The White Rose). I have a three page synopsis that’s part of the proposal package my agent has, but before I begin writing the actual book I need to outline in rather a lot of detail. This will probably take me a few months (though probably not quite as long as the first book since a lot of the character and plot decisions have now been set — outlining a new book is always the hardest because it’s possible to change one’s mind about absolutely everything). I have a pretty good feel for the second book, but I want to ratchet up the tension and really push the characters in new directions as they deal with the aftermath from the first volume and are forced to confront some interesting dilemmas and moral quandaries, largely about slavery and free will. And there will be some cool new characters introduced as well.

I’m getting excited already!