Black Orchid Demon is out with a line editor getting a final makeover before I present it to agents in the new year.

Its sequel, Mark of the Spider, is chilling in a file, marked up by a developmental editor and awaiting the lessons of the Demon line edit.

Credit: Dave Cenker

I’m working on the next Demon book – untitled thus far – and struggling.

The first two books rolled off the keyboard; this one is stuck like a hair between keys.

it’s as though the things that make sequels good – repeat characters with growing personalities, familiar backgrounds, the hard decisions already made about what characters will and won’t do – turn into obstacles.

What’s left to be new? How do you repeat the formula, assuming you have figured out that you have a formula, without repeating the formula?

I’m stumped but still working on it.

http://davecenker.com/