November 2006: Writing/Not Writing (cont.)

Sometimes they try a hand at writing the sequel themselves. Some of them, recognizing the power only a writer has, bring Tony back to life.

Even my Clarion editor once asked me for a sequel to On My Honor. But my answer, whoever asks, has always been the same. No. My imagination has never wanted to go beyond Joel, held in his father’s love, waiting for sleep to come. That scene completes the story I set out to write. I had nothing more to say. Sometimes I have been sorry that I didn’t spell out the climax more clearly, that I didn’t bring Tony’s body back for the readers to grieve over and release, but in any case I was done.

Lately, though, as I live my own son’s dying, I have discovered that I, too, am waking with Joel the morning after Tony’s death. What would he do? Go in search of Tony, of course. He would no more accept the reality of his friend’s drowning than many of my readers have. And thus a new story begins to unfold . . . slowly, slowly. A way to give meaning to my grief.

The third story is still almost entirely amorphous. I have an April 1st deadline for another ghost story for Stepping Stones Mysteries, The Green Ghost. I can see a girl, probably from just post World War II, in love with a green coat. I can see the green coat. It has a velveteen hat and collar and muff and large, velveteen buttons. I know, too, how the girl will die to become my ghost.