I’ve been working tonight on (1) battling the bug I’ve been fighting for more than a week, and (2) expanding the short story I had mentioned in previous posts, sort of a prequel to “The Empty City” about one of the supporting characters and how he ended up where he is. The story, “Salazar: Section 51 Origins,” is turning into quite the work, if I do say so myself.

In one evening, I’ve expanded the first chapter into three chapters that, together, are already longer than the rest of that story. It’s definitely a much different animal, too: the sci-fi that’s going to be a cornerstone of the Section 51 series doesn’t actually come in till the end, and it has a much darker tone. I was actually feeling a bit depressed when I finished the first chapter, which ends in tragedy.

What’s interesting is the work I’m dipping into. A while ago, for fun, I wrote a few screenplays for a non-sci-fi dramatic television series that I never expected to publish or produce. I fell in love with two of the characters in that work, coming up with pretty elaborate backgrounds for them, nearly ignoring the rest of the characters. (I might end up adapting that series for more prose fiction, but I still have yet another book project that’s been in my mind since I was 12.)

Anyway, now that the cat’s kind of out of the bag with Section 51, when I’m done writing it, I’m debating releasing “Salazar” as an e-book before I publish “The Empty City.” It’s probably not going to be long enough to be printed on its own, but I would probably still include it at the end of TEC as a sort of extra feature. There’s one event that’ll be in both stories, not to mention the shared character, so it should fit together nicely.

Stay tuned. There’s a possibility I’ll post an excerpt right here.