Thursday, June 4, 2009

Moonlight Murders

I've started writing another story today. I have been wanting to write something else lately besides just The Phoenix Prophetess. Typically, I can finish my chapter a week with it on Monday. Unfortunately, that leaves the other four days of work for me to have little to do at times. I've been tossing around various ideas, but I've been so tired and lethargic about it that I hadn't gotten any other writing started. I think I might be a little depressed now that I don't have The Case of the Tom Cat still coming out. I was so excited about it, and then it came out, and there was nothing else to get excited about, if that makes any sense. So, I finally thought about some things, and I decided to begin writing off and on Moonlight Murders. I suppose you would call it a sequel to The Case of the Tom Cat, but it is not exactly a short story. True, I don't know how long it will turn out to be, but I'm writing it in chapters, and my goal is that it is over 20,000 words. I figure I'll just write it as I have time and it comes to me. When it is finished, it is finished. Today I began chapter one as well as research on various things. I didn't do any research last time when I wrote The Case of the Tom Cat, but Moonlight Murders requires it.

Here is what the basic storyline is about:
The past three months on the full moon, three people have been brutally murdered. The first one was Julie Page, a former gal from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in London. The second was Michael Weatherby, who was a witness to the destructive fire at Theatre Royal that killed 186 people. The third was George Halloway, who was laid off from his textile working job. On the body of Michael Weatherby, an article about textile factory closings was discovered. On the body of George Halloway was an article on prostitution. All three people were interviewed by Charlotte Parker in 1887. All three were dead, and it looked like someone involved with her prosititution article would be next. Could Madame Marie of the Tom Cat be the next victim? Charlotte has come once again to Liam O'Hare and Matthew Johnson to ask their assistance on solving these murders before the next full moon arises.

There will be new characters and more background on Liam O'Hare, Matthew Johnson, and Charlotte Parker in this upcoming story. I am writing it a little different as well. There are times when Dr. Johnson won't be around, so I've opted to write the story in third person to make it flow more easily. I will have to see how that works, and I might change it in the end back to first person and having Dr. Johnson tell the story, but we'll have to see. It'll be fun to have a side project to work on besides The Phoenix Prophetess.

2 comments:

Aubrie said...

oooo this sounds good. I really like the title. It's almost as if the first book was a prologue since the second one is going to be longer.

I can't wait!

Cherie Reich said...

Yeah. That's kinda how I feel about it. "The Case of the Tom Cat" was a brief introduction to the characters, whereas "Moonlight Murders" is their main story. It does take place almost four years after the Tom Cat incident though, so some things have changed a bit in the past four years. It should be fun!