I admit that the title of this post isn’t original, but I figure that if it was good enough for Bilbo Baggins, it’s certainly good enough for me.  I am now home again after spending almost a month on the road and slowly beginning to pick up where I left off.

My second novel, Any Tomorrow: The Curse, is out at all the major ebook retailers.  This is the good news.  The bad news is that when I search the Barnes & Noble website for “any tomorrow”, only the second novel displays in the results.  To find my first novel, Any Tomorrow: The Calling, I have to search on the full name.  Other sites display both ebooks in the same results page.  I have a suspicion that although the titles are different, the site is seeing them as different versions of the same book.  I’ll have to contact Smashwords to see if I can get that fixed.

I am in the early stages of writing my fourth novel.  Like the first three it’s horror/fantasy swirled around a core of physics.  Physics, you say?  Yes, physics is why things happen.  In my novels there is no magic, no supernatural, no something from nothing.  There is a reason for everything.

The basic premise is this:  It’s 1933.  The world is changing.  The Great Depression.  Poverty.  Fear.  Social unrest.  Fascism is rising in Europe.  Just when you think things couldn’t get worse something happens that changes everything.  Suddenly time and space compress and everything that is 2011 is imposed on 1933.  All the physical attributes, all the data, but no people.  Think about it, one moment you’re driving your 1928 Ford sedan, the next moment you’re behind the wheel of a 2011 Toyota Prius.  More than that, what about World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?   Would they have happened if their histories were already known?  How would governments react?  How would you react?

I’ve already developed a framework for most of this ―for how things happen at least ―understanding that there must be certain rules to prevent the possibility of a temporal paradox.  A temporal paradox would be something like if a man is killed before he fathers his children who live in the imposed future, the children would die before they were born.  That could be a very bad thing.

Understandably, the actual story won’t be the story of that strange world, but will take place within it.  Trying to address every issue and event would take too long and the risk of losing focus would be too great.  The trick will be to focus on the pivotal characters and let them take me through the world.  At this point I’ve got only a general starting point, but if this novel is anything like the last three, it should be a wild ride.

So here’s my plan ― let me know what you think of it ― as I make progress on the novel, I’ll post bits and pieces and ask for your opinions which you can provide to me either by leaving a comment or by using the other social media.  This is similar to participating in the Workshop at eFiction Magazine.  In fact, in the Workshop I currently have the whole first chapter up for review.

And I’ll do the same for you.  Here is a link to the first chapter.  Your comments are encouraged.  But the question I really need answered is this: Does what I’ve written make you want to know more? 

[Sorry, the first chapter is no longer available for review.  The full story, however, is included as a bonus in Any Tomorrow Complete.  Thanks.]

If you’d like to leave a comment about this post or any other, please do I so.  I’d love to hear from you.
© Copyright 2011 by Kevin Fraleigh.