I didn’t plan “Salazar” out the way most writers would, I guess. It’s part of my writing style: I come up with a vague idea of the story and just work towards it.

The plan was to write a short story, maybe 5,000 words or so, to accompany “The Empty City.” It’s similar in theme and the two stories are designed to weave together at one point, but TEC was supposed to be the main story.

And, without revealing too much, I knew of five (now six) major plot points. Let’s call them A, B, C, D, E and F.

Now, seven chapters and 5,785 words in, I just got to point D (which, by the way, is the shared point with TEC), and points E and F I know are going to be complicated. I still need to finish my rewrite of TEC, which has already lengthened that story, so I’m looking at a thicker book than I anticipated. (Not necessarily a bad thing, since longer books aren’t that much more expensive to print.)

Plus, I’m facing a favorite-child dilemma: I’m liking “Salazar” a lot more than TEC. It could be because it’s a much more personal story (TEC is about, well, a city, and “Salazar” is about, well, a person), but it’s still a much different theme than I see Section 51 taking. (Heck, “Salazar” is barely sci-fi; I never planned on introducing the sci-fi elements until E and F, and so far, it’s a simple realistic drama. Or whatever the literary term is.)

Another couple of days, and I’ll probably have the first draft of “Salazar” done, and judging by my complete lack of self-doubt on it, it shouldn’t take too long to revise. I don’t think it’s going to be long enough to offer in print, but I’m leaning towards releasing it as a low-price e-book while I wrap up TEC, and still bundling the two together. Maybe under the title “Section 51 Origins.”

And I know I promised an excerpt, but I do have a couple of copyright concerns regarding that. I think I’ll wait until I’m all done and I’ve submitted the story to the Copyright Office before I post it. (Either way, it should be available on the e-book retailers I’m looking at.)