Back with the Mermaids

Oh joy! I am finally treating myself to a vacation from the Regency and hanging out with the Clanfolk under the ocean.  I’m 22,000 words into Swept Away, the sequel to Tides of Fire, the Rebellion, and at the moment my merfolk are engaged in the mer equivalent of the Olympic Games.  At the same time they are holding a kind of Eisteddfod to find a new poet. This is where it gets interesting. The Clanfolk are very into poetry. But they’ve lost their best poet. So I have to come up with poetry that is supposed to be good i.e. written by their great bard, and also poetry that is supposed to be bad, written by their wannabes.  My problem is – what if my readers don’t see any difference between my good poetry and my bad poetry?

I hate sequels that put the characters you’ve grown to love in the background to bring on new heroes and heroines so I am continuing all the main characters’ storylines. But I have introduced a lovely new male lead, the bastard son of the old Kiakhu king by a Leahtu slave. He has suffered all his life, accepted by neither clan, used by his evil father as a – well I don’t want to spoil the plot. He is beautiful (obviously), but cold and passionless until he meets – nope not going to spoil that one either!

I’ve broken up one established couple (with tears in my eyes), and I’m thinking who to kill off next without annoying too many readers. You just know whoever (whomever?) I kill will be somebody’s favourite character. There’s going to be lots of leaping, lots of fighting, and a whole new tribe of Clanfolk.

See you under the sea, sometime this summer.