First day of 2019 and I’m two days into plotting out the next novel, a sequel to The Third Floor. Finally. Back in 2013 when the book was selling, people said I needed to write a sequel, but at the time I didn’t have a story for what happened next. Since then I’ve written two short stories, “In the Presence of Loneliness” which is a newsletter exclusive you can get for free HERE by signing up for my free weekly newsletter, and “Problems and Bigger Ones”.
With those stories in place as a base, I’ve come up with what I think is an excellent follow up and for the first time in years I’m excited to write a sequel to this book.
I only have 569 words of the plot written, and it’s mostly me talking to myself, sorting out details and the direction and tone of the story, but I’m glad I decided to try to iron out some of the details beforehand as opposed to just writing and hoping I got somewhere interesting. I have faith I could have written a good book that way too, but I’m much happier with the direction the plot is going when I give myself time to talk it out with myself.
Taking all these threads from the original novel and the two short stories and tying them together into one larger whole is an amazing experience and just reminds me to have faith in the process, because when I sat down yesterday to start plotting, I wanted to do anything else BUT start plotting this book. I’d worked up the idea of it so much in my head, I feared anything I wrote was going to be a disaster. And I don’t think it’s too much to say there’s a bit of pressure on this one to be good. At last count, I probably sold over 50,000 copies of The Third Floor, so yes I want this one to do as well, or close to. So a substandard follow up won’t do.
But then I did get started and the words and the ideas came and I feel very confident now that The Third Floor 2 is going to be a great fucking horror novel.